Rainbow of foliage

Were you with us in February, or way back in November? When Kiki made a blue-essence-invitation. Here is  (My) blue story. And Rebecca flourished a rainbow-invitation against the winter gloom. (If we ask nicely, maybe they'll do another colour based meme, or just a second round, for newcomers??)

I so much enjoyed making that floods-and- a-rainbow, that today another one appeared. But this time, no flowers, no wildlife, just leaves.

If you grow roses, will you agree with me, that the reddest of reds is that new growth on happy, healthy roses? Especially when they are glowing in the sunshine.

This is Hibiscus tiliaceus, once bought at Kirstenbosch as indigenous/native. Was surprised to be told by my plant book, that it is one of the few that Kristo Pienaar listed as WORLDWIDE. It did make its first yellow flower, on the day the old camera died. Then it sulked, will have to wait till next summer for the second flowers. It always has some glowing red-orange-yellow leaves scattered amongst the green ones.

Coprosma, one of the first plants I bought for this garden. to add to the cuttings and pots. And I was delighted that it comes from New Zealand, a reminder of my father. Hasn't been happy, too hot I fear. At home in New Zealand it would never be far from the moderating influence of the sea. But is it is trying again now.

What used to be Osterspermum and is now Dimorphotheca jucunda, with a perfect green flower-bud.

I Love blue foliage. The shimmery off key not quite green, of an Aloe, Festuca glauca blue-grass, and Dianthus.

While the rainbow divides indigo and violet (Paging-dr-biv-dr-roy-g-biv?), my eye sees purple. Purple Dodonea, bronze fennel and Aeonium - a nameless variety rescued from the neighbour's garden refuse awaiting collection (By Me!)

This rainbow is a bit of fun to accompany my newest page - Plant Portraits. So you can find that elusive plant, last seen at Elephant's Eye, but what, was it called?

Photos and words by Diana of Elephant's Eye

MayflowerS

May in our garden is about two things. First the rain has brought BULBS bursting thru everywhere you look. Quite literally millions of Oxalis pes-caprae, wherever someone else didn't get in there first! If you've read here before, then you know I love foliage. Half my bulbs are chosen for their leaves, and the flowers are just a lovely bonus.

Top left - Haemanthus, bottom right - Brunsvigia, with pine cones to keep my big feet off the tiny leaves. These should ultimately give me a pair of large leaves, flat on the ground. Imagine a generously opened pair of hands. Top right is the March lily I brought with us from the first garden. They have sulked, since being moved, but with this year's leaves, hoping for flowers next March. And the beautiful twirly blue-green leaves are Boophane. March lilies are done flowering, Oxalis is just starting, and the whole spectrum of the rest, is yet to come. I LOVE bulbs. Especially our South African ones. But the species please, not the terrifying horticultural freaks.

Now I have them side by side, left - the darker fan is Watsonia, right - the golden sheaf is yellow Chasmanthe. Bottom left is Tulbaghia, the oh so quaintly named 'society' garlic. Bottom right another gorgeous glossy leaf, with a ruffled edge, is Veltheimia.

This, which makes the camera run off shrieking, you EITHER have the deep red rose, OR the white pelargonium. So beautiful to the merely human eye, and so hard on the electronic one. (Thank you to my Ungardener to getting me this) The first thing you see, as you turn the corner at the garage, heading for the front door. And across that path is pale pink Perfume Passion rose. Was supposed to grow shortish, but is now graciously offering its blooms at nose level. My nose level!

We almost always have some roses.Top left - Tropical Sunset, which matures to the dusty pink on the top right. Bottom left - Karoo rose, which is a raspberry/watermelon colour hard to capture, but a joy to see. And bottom right is Germiston Gold, this bush is covered with flowers, and more buds coming.

And the second May thing in the garden is COLOUR. We have lots of flowering shrubs, most of which are currently covered in eye-watering sheets of colour. I'm thinking the pink/red sage I inherited from my mother's garden is probably greggei. Another colour that made the camera have a hissy fit, leaving neon pink haz chem holes in our pictures. This attempt has come true to life, after how many foiled attempts. A few South African daisies. Bottom right is more of a garden marguerite from a neighbour. Singing Haz chem pink again.

Pink is Phyllis van Heerden. Yellow, apricot/sunset, and Big Red are all Tecomaria. A humming mass of bees, and the sunbirds are here too, after they have been to the aloes, and the sage.

Pink and apricot pelargoniums. Top left - white Hypoestes (ribbon bush, for the curls) usually a pinky-mauve. Bottom right - soft pink Barleria (April Violets) with unopened buds in apricot.



We close with a filigree shadow on a rose geranium. Once upon a time, thirty years ago I grew this from seed for Friends of Kirstenbosch. And does that plant ever grow!


Photos by Jurg and Diana, words by Diana of Elephant's Eye

Elephant’s Eye is three years old today

This post is for our Swiss friend Andrea, who asked for photos of all four corners. And for Clara who still hasn’t seen the ‘new’ house.

No, not the blogaversary, not yet. We slept in this house for the very first time, three years ago. Digital photos make it so easy to sort out year by year, with Picasa’s help for the collages. So we, and you, can see how a garden emerges from the builder’s blasted earth bomb-site.

This virtual garden on the blog, appears, frozen in time, in two dimensions. If you could walk with me, you would see the third dimension, around the corner, looking back, over here, and NO DON’T look that way. The fourth dimension, of time, and change, is the most important, year long time lapse photography in the collages.

Reeds in May

The first corner, the one you see as you arrive, is the reed corner. Where the weaver birds are at home. And where, when I was sick of WAITING I started planting the first bit of garden. Cuttings that were desperate to get in the ground after more than a year.

When you step into the house, Ungardening Pond, with the sound of the waterfall immediately claims your attention.

Ash Corner in May

Turning right you see the reason we chose this plot. Two huge thirty year old, mountain ash trees. Which have now shed most of their leaves, letting my bulbs enjoy the autumn sun, and rain.

Walk thru the house, or around the house past the Karoo Koppie and Apple Creek’s Elephant Eye Light Railway. To the fig-trees (and washing lines, and compost bins, well they have to go somewhere)

This garden has two jewels. Mine is - this way to Paradise. My rose garden (for more click the roses tag). Seen thru the tall windows in the living room, as you come in. Four beds, because I couldn’t chose a colour. So I have pale and dark, and pink and yellow. With the foliage and not rose flowers singing along in harmony, whether the roses are blooming or resting.

We start in Paradise, sitting with our tea, listening to birds singing. ‘Lift my eyes to the quiet hills’. Looking across to Plum Creek and the waterfall. Then we walk around the pond to the ash trees with their planters, glancing at the blue and fynbos borders (going to be pink in future. Fynbos shrizzled up in the heat!) The shadow of the bare trees falls on the Karoo Koppie, with Apple Creek in the sunshine. Walk down that path, to the fig trees.

The second jewel is the Ungardener’s - Ungardening Pond (for more click the pond tag). Half of what makes this a wildlife garden. Water, some shelter, and food. For frogs and birds and dragonflies. Some eat, and some, are eaten …

As we say goodbye, and you walk away, this is the last you will see of our garden. Before you turn to the driveway, with its pecan tree, and olives, and winter’s joy of Japanese flowering quince, and guavas (now ripe) and Australian bush cherry roaring off to take over the world.

Photos by Jurg and Diana,  words by Diana of Elephant's Eye  

Return to the Owl House - the Koos Malgas legacy

Last Friday I took you with me to the Owl House in Nieu Bethesda. Visitors come to this far away town to see her home, filled with her art works, created thru the second half of her life.

Imagine sculptures made of concrete. If you are a sculptor, or a craftsperson imagine the artist Helen Martins handing you her idea, a rough sketch on the back of a match-box. In a yuppie setting, a scribble on a paper napkin. And today something electronic. What does it do to the creative process if the mind's eye does not work thru a pencil on paper? Just tapping at an electronic keyboard?

Men?! Thru the large window is the kitchen, with that hearth blazing

So you can understand why Koos Malgas' granddaughter was bitter and indignant. All the benefit of tourism comes to White Nieu Bethesda. All the fame for the art lies with Miss Helen! From this young woman's sorrow grew a book - Koos Malgas, Sculptor of the Owl House - Julia Malgas and Jeni Couzyn.

What is rather fun is that Koos left a self-portrait of himself as shepherd.

And this wonderful image of his daughters - two young girls, one older, one younger, in swirly dresses, hand in hand. Running to follow that star in the east. Where they will find the baby, lying in a stable, with his mother and father.  A horde of camels and wise men from afar. It really is a step-out-of-this-world experience. But one where I appreciate being alone, no-one else's comments, whether thoughtful or flippant, intruding on me.

The Camel Yard. And in The East, they saw a star ...

Koos Malgas worked at shearing sheep, and casual labour out of season. He converted Helen's initial ideas, into actual three-dimensional sculptures in the garden. They worked together over the course of twelve years. He died in 2000. artthrob In Memory of Koos Malgas

House baby, and the garden baby

(If you are in California - have you seen Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village Apparently the art scholars call these Art Brut and a 'visionary environment')

Photos by Jurg and Diana,  words by Diana of Elephant's Eye  

My life, in oil-spills and shipwrecks

Chapter 1 - The Seafarer.

Home, where I was born, grew up, and lived and gardened for 20 years, is Camps Bay. Then a sleepy hollow, seaside suburb of Cape Town. The Fairest Cape in the whole circumference of the earth - declared Francis Drake. But it is also a cape of storms, with a busy shipping lane. Our images and words of disasters in nature, were painted by the TV journalist Charl Pauw. (Remember South Africa wasn’t allowed to have TV until After, man walked on the moon, Chris Barnard transplanted a heart) But my generation remembers the Seafarer because that ship came aground, just off the Sea Point shore. And we could see it with our own eyes. It was a fierce stormy 30th June 1966, which my family remembers because one of my sisters was married on That Day.

Chapter 2 - Sandy Bay scrap metal aground.

When the Ungardener joined my life he remembers the Romelia and the Antipolis. Ships that were being towed to the East (halfway round the world, no problem) to be scrapped. In fierce storms in 1977 the tow-rope broke. Nothing to be done. The Antipolis went aground at Oudekraal, and the Romelia at Sandy Bay (both between Camps Bay and Hout Bay). The sea is very deep there. We used to go and watch week by week, month by month, as the ship broke up. And half a ship, broke free, and disappeared below the water, to become an artificial reef for sea life.

Chapter 3 - Exxon Valdez.

Alaska 1989. This I remember because of the sorrow of the impact on wildlife, in what once was a pristine environment. Then following the slow recovery. Until it has become, just a memory. But it leaves me feeling that Exxon is a four letter word.

Chapter 4 - Oiled penguins and SANCCOB.

June 2000 Cape Town had its worst oil-spill ever. I grew up, with anguished green voices asking - just how much oil are we talking about? So much fuel, so much in the bunkers. We have efficient marine salvage companies, who would pump off as much as possible, between storms. Before the ship broke up, or to make it lighter so it could be towed in for repairs. A link from Microbial Lab - with pictures of the Gulf of Mexico 2010, that are seared in my mind’s eye, triggered this post. Just how much oil are we talking about???

Oil spills mean death to seabirds. With (fossil) oiled feathers they cannot swim. Cannot regulate their body temperature. Preening the oil pollution off, means they don’t eat. A slow and nasty death, that doesn’t bear thinking about. Because we are so ‘close’ to Antarctica we have penguins. Oiled penguins are poster-birds for - because we care we do what we can. SANCCOB is a charity - which collects or receives oiled birds. Cleans them, force-feeds them, and cares for them. Until they can eat, and swim again. Sometimes the cleaned birds are taken to Port Elizabeth, in the hope that by the time they swim home, the oil slick will have dispersed.

Chapter 5 - Peak Oil.

Have just read a novel about Peak Oil. Last Light by Alex Scarrow. I understand the concept, but hadn’t met the expression. In that book all oil based transport was stopped, no oil (I won’t reveal why). Then the volcano in Iceland blew - and the world tipped into what feels to me - too young to remember - like a WWII situation. (My NZ grandmother came to visit South Africa, then had to stay, for the duration). No flights, but WE still have trains, buses, boats. In that book it was, walk.

This book also made me look at Grow our Own, locavores and permaculture differently. How much food is there, in your city, if oil-based transport ceases. After you have gone to the supermarket and stocked up. Then what?

Words by Diana of Elephant's Eye

My Yellows

Teza wrote with disgust about yellow pelargoniums, before he went off to test the waters beyond the safe harbour of Blotanical. Had to ask him - Is there really a Yellow Pelargonium?? And he put up a picture for me. (But I still wonder, was Teza teasing me??) Now I covet that plant.

My gardening style tends towards indigenous/native, preferably the true species rather than horticulture’s sometimes truly awful and weird new varieties. I have two species of mauve Scabiosa, which grow like mad, generating cuttings. Then I got a pink one, which is hanging in there, but not inclined to produce any flowers, Pink you say?

Chocolat on Frog Watch

At the back of my mind grows the thought, that, given a choice I go for yellow flowers. Pink is too pretty. White is too insipid. Blue would be good, but South Africans are so blasé about sky blue Plumbago, purply blue Agapanthus, true blue Kingfisher daisies - that blue has lost its ‘unusual’ impact. Orange doesn’t do it for me. Red is too much. Purple is ho-hum, and green flowers are just plain weird. (But they are all here in the garden, with brown and aubergine and burnt orange and turquoise, and multicolours - only the true green is missing!) Perhaps I’ll seek out a delicate green wild Gladiolus?

Yellow. Especially a newer variety of … An icon of winter, driving across the anti-claustrophobic expanse of the Karoo are spires of red/orange flowers on aloes. In its true landscape, that vibrant jewel-like colour is awe-inspiring. In a tightly planted garden, I find the colour can be overwhelming. Was delighted to find at the Rare Plants Fair, a gentle buttery yellow aloe. My treasured plant is now full of flowers with more buds coming.

Daisies - weed, shrub, species and variety

A yellow Kniphofia which is more willing to flower for me than the orangy one, which made flower spikes, just before the March heat wave toasted them into history. There is always next year … The yellow Bulbinella has slightly bigger flowers too.

I favour a soft yellow not a sharp one, but I love the lime green of Euphorbia. Not the ferocious acidic yellow of canola, especially awful when there are fields and fields of it. Nor the fierce yellow of marigolds or that nasty feathery thing that looks like ‘bad hair day’. A true yellow that sings, not a sad washed-out one.

Tecomaria, Bulbinella, Peace and Germiston Gold roses

There is a pot filled with yellow Clivia, which is now overcrowded and not making many flowers. This yellow shift is why my favourite bed in the rose-garden is yellow. The roses there are also the happiest and most generous with their flowers. Enough winter sun, enough summer shade, and Germiston Gold, Elizabeth of Glamis and Courvoisier keep giving. Tropical Sunset and Casanova give less blooms, but those, are more imposing.

Euryops

When I wander the garden today - with he who Must Be Told - the haul is yellow flowers. Labouring on at translating the new language of F stops and shutter speeds, and adjust this and check that - and WHY does that look so frightful, what did or didn’t I do???  And we end with Peace and our grateful thanks to the Meilland rose-breeders.

Photos and words by Diana of Elephant's Eye

The Owl House at Nieu Bethesda

This is NOT about owls. It IS about the life and work of Helen Martins, and Koos Malgas. When we were heading for Addo. The Ungardener loves game watching. 'Hunting' for elephants. We went via the Owl House, which has been on my See Before I Die list for years.

Nelspoort to Murraysburg

Helen Martins was from the story-book town of Nieu Bethesda in the Great Karoo, in the Eastern Cape. She was born in 1897. To put it into my own context, contemporary with my grandmother. Or since I was a laatlammetjie and my father turned fifty when I was only six months old - my 'great-grandmother'. Scroll back thru your own family history and imagine an intelligent, creative, Eccentric young woman. Growing up in an isolated, conservative, small country town. Even today, it is more of a village than a town. Perhaps you don't have to imagine, perhaps there was a legendary Great Aunt Rose in Rome in your father's family.

This - is opposite the church. Lights on?

She was married briefly, twice. But as the youngest of six, and single, she was 'recalled' to care for her dying mother, then her father. Imagine, having known a different life, how strange, how claustrophobic small town life can be, if you don't fit in.

Helen turned to light and colour. Her artwork is famous. Her home is today a museum cared for by the OH Foundation. She has inspired dissertations and books and pilgrimages like mine. Her creation fuels tourism to Nieu Bethesda. Give yourself the leisure to immerse yourself in her world, both the art in her home, and the enchanting town itself.

Imagine mythical, slightly menacing creatures. Ethereally perfect young girls. A step-thru-a-stitch-in-time experience. It is moving  - the vibrancy of creation, held within deep sorrow. The sculptures are made of concrete. To achieve the light and colour, she collected old glass. Ran it thru a coffee mill. And then sorted the result by colour and size. Those neatly arranged rows of jars in her pantry. Contain the proverbial ground glass - waiting patiently for the next project, which will, never come.

In 1976, when her eyes began to fail, and her life's work was complete, she took her own life.

Those flames that blaze at the kitchen hearth

are ground glass applied in a shimmering layer

to the window glass

In the Old South Africa, Helen Martins was The Artist Full Stop. In the New South Africa, she worked with Koos Malgas ... see Part 2 next Friday.

BTW I would have been sad to miss this Name-that-blog, specially since Nancy-formerly-Soliloquy has just RENamed her blog. The New Blotanical Reader only brings you the One Single Latest Post from each of My Faved Blogs. So if you don't, pay attention now, you might need to fall back on Google Reader, for the ones you missed.

Photos by Jurg and Diana,  words by Diana of Elephant's Eye  

The long and the short view. Walking around Ungardening Pond

M’sieur Chocolat frequently brings us presents. He is greeted by me wailing - What have you got NOW?! We try to rescue the presents. ‘Please, don’t bring all the garden inhabitants home to play’ But if he is considerate enough to bring them in - we do get a chance to photograph something we hear. A gentle splash as we approach the water, or an almighty din when the moon is out.

If you were to visit us. In the front door, across the living room to the verandah. You would look first at the pond, Pani's Falls. We have had some rain, the pond is full again after repairs.

The Ungardener is working on the bird feeder. Painted it blue, for me. Then they tell us snail pellets are blue so birds won’t eat them. Not a well-chosen colour for a bird-feeder? But the poisonous yellow or red of nectar-feeders for sun-birds, doesn’t work for me. Yuck!

Passing Paradise, the rose garden. Walking thru plum trees. Black Stork Island sits in the centre of the pond. And Chocolat knows that is where the frogs hang out. Sadly he has it down to a fine art, sneaking up on them, gentle splash. Damn! Foiled again!

Having walked around to the waterfall, you look back across to the jetty.

Behind Pani’s Falls is a future Woodland Walk. For now the shrubs and trees are shoulder/head height. I did try with scented Pelargoniums, but the delicate Died of the Heat, and Tough Took Over. That is another bit of this garden, where my eye and the camera, don’t see what my head expected. Pausing at Rest and Be Thankful to watch birds and enjoy the sound of the waterfall. We go to the ash planters and turn to look back again.

Because the frog is willing to pose, we can get details. Frog’s eyes in glue anyone?

These photos are trying to be moody. The Ungardener has the advantage of having used a real camera, an SLR, way back when we met. Now I am trying to learn about F stops and apertures and shutter speeds - to avoid the whited-out overexposed Strange coloured pictures we seem to get, if we use auto.

I am still frustrated by the fact that the human eye looks at the leaf up close, the tree over there, and the faraway mountain, and can focus on ALL three. The camera however, Must Be Told, We
Are Looking At That. Um, back track a second, did I really tell you to focus on that bare bit of fence, the neighbour’s washing, that empty bright blue plastic pot I was about to put away?!

PS Blotanists - I have reverted to Full Feed. Stuart has sorted the picture formatting in the new Blotanical reader. Pictures and text now behave just as they do in Google Reader

Photos and words by Diana of Elephant's Eye