(Right: Elsa Pooley)
On the Pieter
Scholtz Stage*, first Monday in September, the St Clements organisers will
welcome Dr Elsa Pooley: environmentalist,
adventurer, creative, UKZN Honorary Doctorate recipient, renowned author,
botanical artist, landscaper, indigenous plant guru. Not to forget the
crocodiles. Look forward to a fun, entertaining and interactive evening as she
shows-and-tells, shares stories from her remarkable life and journey, and
answers our questions…
Roots and Flowerings: A Remarkable Journey
Dr Elsa Pooley grew up in Johannesburg, Harare and Maritzburg. She went to live in the game reserves of Maputaland when she married (the late) Tony Pooley in the mid-1960s then moved to the KZN South Coast in 1984.
During 20 years in the Zululand game reserves, Elsa Pooley collected plants, mapped vegetation, published papers, created an annotated checklist of Ndumu Game Reserve plants, researched the plant diet of the Nyala antelope, the Thonga people, the plant life on Lake St Lucia’s eastern shores...
She has written field guides on plants of KZN. Runs an indigenous landscaping business. Been involved in environmental control and vegetation rehabilitation. She was landscaping consultant to the Durban Beachfront upgrade (2008-2013).
She has been painting plants since 1967 and first exhibited her botanical paintings in 1973. She was a founder member of the Botanical Artists Association of Southern Africa. She has collected many awards and authored and illustrated many books (including one her late husband wrote). Her most recent (2025) is the South African Indigenous Garden Plants for the Gardener (with co-authors Geoff Nichols and Andrew Hankey).
Her sons, *Simon Pooley and *Thomas Pooley, did their undergraduate degrees at UKZN and had books published in 2025, as did she. Look forward to seeing posters, photos and books: including her big indigenous garden book.
(*Simon now lives in the UK and got his doctorate in environmental history at Oxford. *Thomas started in the music dept of UKZN, did a masters at Wits, won a fellowship to Univ. of Pennsylvania to do his PhD and is now professor of musicology at UNISA.)
When the donation box is passed around, St Clements requests generosity and a minimum of R50 per person.
Weather permitting, the talk will be outdoors.
Bookings limited to diners in support of St Clements restaurant and staff. Single folk are welcome to book for one person and join a table.
Be there in time to open your tab, order at the counter and settle in before the scheduled 6pm start. Please cancel if you book then can’t make it.
* Pieter Scholtz (1937 — 2025) ‘Mondays at
Six’ legacy soiree.