How To Sow Bokbaaivygies

There is no more cheerful sight than a patch of one of our most famous wildflowers, the annual bokbaaivygies (Cleretum bellidiforme).

If you are a fan of vygies and similar plants, you can have swathes of these flat-growing succulents in flower every season if you plant different species, both indigenous and exotic, which are available as both annuals and perennials. Bokbaaivygies are one option.

On a sunny late winter or spring day, the dazzling flowers in a rainbow of colours open up widely to invite honeybees and other pollinators to pay a visit, and your rock garden, pots, or any other sunbaked spot, will be ablaze with colour!

Although you can buy bokbaaivygies in seedling punnets later on in the season, it is easy and economical to sow them yourself, and this is done directly into the ground where you want them to grow.

To Sow Bokbaaivygies

Spread a thick layer of compost over the soil and dig it in to about 20cm deep. You can add a general fertiliser at this stage too. Rake the soil to a fine level while removing old roots and stones.
Water very lightly afterwards with a fine rose spray to settle your seedbed.
Mix the seeds with mealie meal, cake flower or river sand as a dry carrier – these materials will help you to spread it out more evenly while sowing. Sow evenly.
Rake the soil very lightly again to cover the seeds and tamp down gently with the back of the rake.
Water well with a fine rose spray.

Ensure success

Direct sowings should be watered every day, or even twice a day in the early morning and late afternoon if it is a hot day, until the first signs of germination. Once they have germinated, keep the soil just moist. Use a soft sprayer and take care not to create muddy pools, which will wash your seeds away.