Vergelegen Wine Estate, a Western Cape heritage site in Somerset West, is renowned for multiple sustainability initiatives, and during Arbor Week, staff from all divisions, from pastry chefs to vineyard workers, gathered to plant 200 trees.

The estate is committed to planting 1000 trees yearly in the vast 54-hectare arboretum, gardens, and other areas where fallen trees need to be replaced.

Nature is in a constant state of flux. Several of Vergelegen’s trees – despite considerable research, investment and collaboration with leading universities and tree experts – have been lost due to the destructive polyphagous shot hole borer beetle.

In addition, the estate is in an area prone to strong winds. An intense low-pressure system in April led to gale-force winds, which toppled 120 large trees in the 60-hectare cultural heritage area.

Vergelegen gardens manager Richard Arm selected resilient species for the Arbor Week planting. These included South Africa’s national tree, real yellowwood (Podocarpus latifolius), milkwood (Sideroxylon inerme), water oak (Quercus nigra) and turkey oak (Quercus cerris).

Vergelegen has planted 626 trees this year, and Arm is confident that the target will be surpassed. He says some of the estate’s trees go back centuries, like an Outeniqua yellowwood, a hollow old English oak, an ancient white mulberry, and five enormous camphor trees in front of the homestead, which were proclaimed national monuments in 1942.