Table of Contents
Your index to fynbos resources
About this Page
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We supply protea seeds, starter packs and books to help you create a fynbos wonderland of your garden. Charles has built secure online credit card payment facilities to make your shopping experience completely safe, easy and effortless.
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Seed Starter Packs
- Get a Protea Starter Pack with a selection of easy to grow Protea seeds, Smoke Primer and detailed growing instructions to help you germinate and grow the proteas.
- Contains an Erica Starter Pack with a selection of beautiful Erica seeds, Smoke Primer and detailed growing instructions.
- Try a Bulb Starter Pack with a selection of classic bulb seeds with detailed growing instructions.
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Accessories for
Growing Proteas where you can find
- Seed Primer to help germinate protea seeds
- Protea Fertilizer to provide nutrients to proteas without burning the delicate roots
- Aluminium Nursery Tags that don't perish or fade with time
- Phytosanitary Certificates for your seeds so that your department of agriculture will allow you to import them
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Aulax Seeds
- All three species of this genus are available here.
- Leucadendron Seeds
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Leucospermum Seeds
- Seeds of thirteen different species of pincushion.
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Protea Seeds
- A very wide selection of protea with pictures of the flowers.
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Protea Seeds for Tropical or Summer-rainfall Climates
- A selection of protea most suitable for growing in
humid, tropical or summer-rainfall climates. Some of these are
true summer-rainfall proteas, and others are particularly
adaptible and resistant to fungal infections. This is a good
selection for inexperienced growers in regions with little or no
frost.
- Easy-growing Protea Selection for Beginners
- A selection of the most hardy, easy to grow and satisfying protea seeds. Includes instructions and Kirstenbosch Instant Smoke Plus Seed Primer to help you germinate your protea seeds.
- Pottable Protea Seed Selection
- A selection of protea seeds most likely to thrive when grown in a pot. Includes special protea fertilizer and Kirstenbosch Instant Smoke Plus Seed Primer to help you germinate your protea seeds.
- Cut-flower Protea Seed Selection
- A selection of seeds of the most attractive protea flowers. These plants have good stem lengths and nice flowers. Includes instructions and Kirstenbosch Instant Smoke Plus Seed Primer to help you germinate your protea seeds.
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Wild Flower Watercolours
- Reproductions of Protea Watercolor paintings by Stanley Seagrief on recycled paper
- Reproductions of Cape Wild Flower watercolors by Stanley Seagrief
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Teach Yourself nKosi Sikelel' Cassette Tapes
- These cassette tapes provide line-by-line instruction on how to sing nKosi Sikelel' iAfrika - the new National Anthem of South Africa.
It includes an explanation of the meaning of the song, and opportunities to sing along while you learn.
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Lindibell Windchimes
- Windchimes specially hand-tuned to resonate with your soul -
these are genuine tuned musical instruments
Use our message forum to get help on protea and fynbos cultivation issues. We have visitors from all over the world sharing their experience of growing protea. This forum is set up to protect your identity on the internet and will allow you to communicate with other enthusiasts in complete safety.
- Discussion Forum
- Use this forum to post queries, answer other's questions or message with protea and fynbos enthusiasts around the world. Current topic categories are:
- Seed Starter Packs
- Growing Proteas
- Fynbos
- Seed Trades
- Discussion Archive
- This is where the contents of our old discussion forum live. You can find a lot of useful information here.
- Growing Protea FAQ
- A growing selection of questions and anwers about protea growing.
Although protea form only one element of the mix of species that makes up fynbos, we have given them special treatment because the flowers are so magnificent and have captured the world's imagination. In this section we tell you as much as we know about proteas and how to grow them.
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Grow your own Protea
- These are our detailed instructions on how to grow protea from seed.
- Germinating Protea Seeds
- This page shows how the Smoke Seed Primer disks help protea seed to germinate.
- How to prune Proteas
- Need to pick the flowers from your bush? Want to know how to do sanitation pruning? Worried about the way your protea bush is growing and want to fix it? Try the tips on this page.
- Buy Protea Seeds Online
- This is our online seed shop
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Fynbos Books
Because good books on growing protea are so rare and so hard to find, we have bought a stockpile of the Kirstenbosch Grow Proteas book so that you can buy it from us easily and effortlessly.
- Kirstenbosch Grow Proteas Book
- Protea Water-colours
- Beautiful, realistic and natural botanical paintings of protea.
- Pictures of Proteas on Fijnbosch Farme
- Photographs of proteas growing in the wild on our farm.
- Join the Protea Mailing List
- This is a unique mailing list - it is actually a bulletin board, where you can choose to be emailed whenever there is a contribution to a topic.
- So, no more useless email filling your inbox - you choose which discussion threads interest you and get an email whenever there is a post to it.
- Also, you can browse the forum for past contributions and don't need to save every email in the hope that it might come in useful someday.
- Useful Links
- These links open a new browser window:
- The Protea Atlas Project
- This project seeks to map the distribution of all proteas in Southern Africa. The website will teach you how to identify protea species, and is full of interesting information about protea.
- SAPPEX - the South African Protea Producers and EXporters association
- This site is about exporting cut flowers. It has a huge catalog of protea and fynbos flowers. You can also join the association to get their journal which contains research information about cultivating protea.
Fynbos is the name given to the natural vegetation of the Western Cape
Province of South Africa. It forms one of the six floral kingdoms of
the world, and is recognized as the richest for its size.
Unlike many other websites where you struggle to get off their infernal mailing lists, with us you will struggle to get on. There are only two ways to get onto our mailing list:
Even so, we seldom email our list - so anything you do get from us will be a significant announcement. Last year we sent out one mailing.
The Fijnbosch Farme belongs to a trust of which the Charles and Julie
Oertel are trustees. Charles is the webmaster of the FineBushPeople web
site, and Julie runs the online farme store. On this page you can find
out some personal information about us.
Our neighbours run guest cottages. You can visit the
mountain, hike and mountain-bike and unwind by staying in one of the
lovely cottages.
Miscellaneous Pages and Links
These are pages and links that don't fit into the site structure the
way the links above do. Some of them are remnants of old structures
that you might still find interesting.
- Our Favourite Books
- Books that have helped shape our lives, and why. You can
order these online here through Amazon.com, or you can read a
little about how we got to where we are now.
- Viewing this
site
- How to get the best from this site. Instructions on how to
save images and print pages and other useful tips.