Philip Le Roux

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/opinion/sunday/philip-le-roux.html

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Philip Le Roux is curator of Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town.

READING The Elon Musk biography by Ashlee Vance. He went to school in South Africa but it wasn’t a very pleasant experience. He got beaten up a lot. So he left as soon as he could. I am just totally fascinated by his ambition and what he achieved and what he still continues to achieve. I think my interest is more on the things he’s doing to benefit the environment, producing sustainable energy and making it affordable.

I’m also reading the autobiography of the cyclist Chris Froome. He also went to school in South Africa and had an unhappy background. I don’t know, maybe that’s what makes people so driven. As a young boy, he rode with the local Kenyans just outside Nairobi. He became obsessed with cycling and has won the Tour de France three times now.

LISTENING I’m 60 years old, and you’re inclined to stick with music you grew up with. But because I’ve been keen to bring artists from overseas for a concert series we have at Kirstenbosch, I’ve started following more current bands. It’s been fantastic that I’ve done that because there’s so much good music. Acts like the Lumineers, Angus and Julia Stone and the Pixies.

As a botanic garden you want to draw in a younger and a more diverse group. We are visited mostly by middle-aged and older white folk. Even in America, at the New York Botanical Garden, which is surrounded by African-American communities, you go into the garden and there’s not one black person. In South Africa that’s not O.K. I mean, we are a majority-black country. We’ve had a lot of success with the concert series. They come to hear the bands and they realize this is a really cool place.

WATCHING Our spring annuals are in full bloom at the moment. When the garden was established 100 years ago it was to grow South African indigenous plants. Protea are a big family of plants that are unique to the Cape. There’s a whole range of colors and an amazing array of flowers. The Cape floral kingdom is one of the six botanical kingdoms of the world. It’s a tiny patch on the tip of Africa which is minute but has been given kingdom status because of its massive botanical variety. The whole of North America and Europe are all one kingdom. Australia is one kingdom.

FOLLOWING I follow SpaceX rocket launches. The re-landing on barges was just unbelievable. We also have an active Kirstenbosch photography group that posts pictures on Facebook every day, like of a spotted eagle owl nesting on a rock in the middle of the garden. Because there are so many tourists, predators are kept away. A lot of people say we need to protect the birds from the tourists but the tourists are actually protecting the birds.

CYCLING I do a bit of cycling. I ride mostly road bikes but recently bought a Silverback mountain bike. Cycling is massively popular in South Africa, particularly for men over 35. It’s the kind of a thing where you get five or six guys and go riding two to three hours and you always stop at a coffee shop. If you’re a man of a certain age in South Africa, you don’t golf, you cycle.