10 Sep 2014

When Mr Wada Supang used to occasionally rest at Anne Adam’s Park in Selebi Phikwe, one of the best landscaped parks in the country during his primary school days, he never thought he would end up as a professional landscaper.

“When I was doing Standard Four I enjoyed resting in that park in Selebi Phikwe because I was attracted by its greenery,” he said in an interview recently.

Due to his passion for nature, especially growing and nurturing flowers, Mr Supang said he started growing flowers at his home village of Tonota when he completed his high school.

In 2009, he used those flowers to decorate at his brother’s wedding which left many of those who attended amused by his decorations and urged him to pursue his talents.

Furthermore, Mr Supang said his father bought him a hedge cutting pair of scissors and in 2010 he registered his company called Swanscapes.

Since then he has never looked back and it was during the same year that the Department of Youth and Culture invited him to attend a youth rally where young people had been brought together to showcase their talents.

During that event, he managed to scoop position one under the decoration category and that inspired him to apply for a youth development fund and he was funded that same year.

As a talented artist, Mr Supang said he used to draw and do some painting and the economic down turn forced him to be innovative and use his artistic talent to decorate with plants.

Besides being a professional artist and a landscaper, Mr Supang is also a talented writer who writes articles about taking care of gardens and the importance of forestation on local magazines like Botshelo and Boidus newspaper.

Mr Supang, who is also a hard worker and engages with his clients and employees, said that in 2011, he won an award at the BOCCIM agriculture youth expo which was held in Francistown and in 2012, he won the Vision 2016 award under an educated and an informed nation.

He said he was also sent by the youth ministry to Swaziland last year to showcase how youth empowerment programmes benefit Batswana and during his trip he developed a garden in Swaziland at Ngwane Park.

Furthermore, the youngster who said he did not go to school for his landscaping skills said that he works with Iris Ludick gardens and they supply him with flowers and plants.

He also stated that his company does gardens for individuals, lodges, churches, decorates at weddings, big shows like Miss Botswana and BOCCIM.

“We are professionals, we know what we are doing and we engage our clients, share ideas with them and use water friendly trees,” he explained.

He also stressed that, although his company is a medium enterprise, it markets itself through quality service which leads to people recommending it to others.

Besides landscaping, decoration and maintaining gardens, he said they also do paving of pathways, irrigation designs, layout and installation, office cleaning, plant sales, herbicides and fumigation, bush clearing, waste removal, rose care, fish tank and aquarium cleaning.

Mr Supang also stressed that they have adopted three schools being Nkange Junior Secondary, Senete and Segomotso primary schools, which they supply with plants and flowers.

However, Mr Supang decried the shortage of water in Botswana, especially in the southern part, saying that it was an area with a lot of business opportunities.

The scarcity of water, he noted, affects them negatively since it is difficult to compete there while they are based in Tonota.

Also, he said that, as a medium enterprise, they face fierce competition from established companies that have water bowsers and trucks.

He urged the government to come up with an initiative in which youth are given an opportunity to compete and purchase CTO auctioned cars.

Mr Supang also urged the youth to fully use their talents and youth programmes like the YDF because they are aimed at improving their lives. Ends