Chocolate, cocoa and … Dombeya?

All members of the Sterculiaceae family. Yes we eat/drink them too, but this plant is gorgeous! Named for Joseph Dombey, a French botanist who worked in Peru and Chilé, collecting plants.

Dombeya planted in May 2008

We planted this shrub in May 2008. See, tucked in the corner, with big leaves, about knee high? Now when we walk down the driveway it waves exuberantly at us, about two metres high and over the concrete panel wall (abhorred by upmarket areas, which is why we fit in so happily here).

Dombeya burgessiae

‘Pink wild pear’ Dombeya burgessiae. There once was a Miss Burgess of Birkenhead, which invites a limerick. One of those plants I favour, a shrub or small tree. Expected to reach about four metres high and wide, probably a bit less with our hot summers. Found naturally from Kwazulu-Natal (that is sub-tropical) then north up to Tanzania. It is eaten by black rhinos, and the bark can be made into baskets.

Dombeya burgessiae

Dombeya burgessiae

Dombeya burgessiae - leaf detail and reverse

So many plants bear the name cordata or cordifolium. And I’m left thinking you call That a Heart?! But this shrub bears a profusion of delightful hearts. Sadly the leaves sulk and pine away in captivity, NOT happy, cut and picked in a vase. Those tropical looking big velvety leaves flourish against that shady south facing wall, and will appreciate dappled shade. Exactly what I want for our developing Woodland Walk.

Dombeya burgessiae - leaf collage

A few lines, written in 1887, published in 1896, and never out of print since according to Housman-Society UK, lifted with joy from

A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

Now of my three score years and ten,

Twenty will not come again,

About the woodland I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

Dombeya burgessiae flower

I like to pick these flower heads, to turn them up, so I can see into their 'faces'. Looking at those faces thru Esther's eyes Looking-up-Skirts-of-Flowers. I only noticed the first two trusses of flowers today, so I will wait patiently before I pick any.

Dombeya burgessiae collage

There are 190 in the family from Africa, Madagascar and the islands. Only 7 species are South African. In a range thru white to lighter and deeper pink. Tolerates light frost and drought. Can be grown from seeds. What more can we ask for! My facts come from PlantZAfrica

Pictures and words by Diana of Elephant's Eye 

Photographing birds, in our garden, mostly

If a black stork lands in our garden and we don’t see it, was it really there? This was our wildlife garden’s shining moment. My birding niece said Never Seen One of Those! We wouldn’t have known there were black storks – if we hadn’t seen this one here.

 (On the verandah, about 7 metres from the bird on the island.

 Taken with the dear departed Old Canon.)

Black stork

Usually we see storks in the fields. White ones.  Of course, as soon as we stopped, and got out to take the picture, long legs strode briskly off into the blurred distance!

Stork in field

Our national bird. One for gardeners like me, who love glaucous blue foliage. Large birds, standing just over a metre tall. Blue cranes.

Blue cranes

A bird in the hand, stunned after crashing into the window, is easy.

Juvenile sunbird, in hand

Bobbing around hunting in the rosebush is harder.

 (Behind the livingroom window, and the bird is only about a metre away.)

Sunbird

The fig tree outside the kitchen window has sunbirds, mousebirds and starlings. Weavers and white eyes zip thru, in a hurry. The Ungardener has always enjoyed sitting at the waterhole, waiting to see what comes. I can’t quite do that. But his patience was rewarded one rainy day. Bathsheba in her bath.

(From the kitchen Bird Hide, about two metres. This is using continuous shooting. 

Seven images per second. And a story emerges, which the human eye did not See.)

Bathsheba in her bath

  

Mousebird

(My stationary gull, obligingly resting, is easy.)

Kelp gull

(But his gannet in flight, is the result of clicking away briskly. Then sorting the blurred and fuzzy ones. The ones that are Perfectly Sharp, but Unfortunately the Bird Has Flown, Away. 

And in the residue, perhaps there is one like this.)

Gannet in flight

We have a bird house/feeder. And if we are quiet the birds come. In noisy hordes, that complain bitterly if the kitchen staff are a bit slow.

 (About five metres away. If they cooperate it is OK. In flight, his pictures are good or bad, depending.)

Red Bishop, yellow weavers and sparrows at feeder

We have, perhaps the grandson, of our Argumentative Little Cuss. None of the others have been as ferocious as the first one. He used to terrorise the sparrows and weavers. Red Baron roaring screaming out of the sky, his beak ‘dripping blood’. This one however, waits patiently for the much larger birds to allow him in. The pintailed whydah is 12 cm, plus 22 cm of tail. Compared to the 15 to 18 of the sparrows and weavers.

Whydah

And then one chilly morning in August, when the temperature had dropped to 7 C the night before. For a long time, I watched this pair of waxbills. Enjoying the morning sun side by side. Chatting over the morning paper. Coffee for him, tea for me. Extra butter on his croissant, I’ll just have jam thanks. Mutual grooming, but that doesn’t make a story, does it?

 (And this is the best that my new point and shoot Canon can do on maximum zoom. Then cropped in the computer. You can see the red bill from which it gets its name. But, we need a better zoom.)  

Waxbills in morning sun

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

Blogging tools I use 6-10, garnished with My Garden Bouquet for September

Noelle, AZ plantlady has a monthly meme – Celebratory-September-MGB My Garden Bouquet. What can you pick in your garden this month? Following her lead, I am keeping it simple this time. Once the roses get going most of my vases are just this. A rose. My Spiced Coffee bush turned up its toes this summer. It was too hot. No leaves left. But I waited, and wondered. Come the winter rain it has sprouted from the roots. This single flower was hanging, sodden with rain, so in it came in.  Read the blogging tools, or look at the pictures for the non-blogging Ungardener and co!

6 Blotanical ‘Five years ago blogging was a club. There was this wonderful, delicious feeling of being able to talk … with people who shared your interests’ – David Sifry of Technorati. We, at Blotanical still have that – Blotanists don’t lurk, we comment, and discuss, and rant, and ask questions (expecting answers) and yes we answer. And if you are not the Lone Ranger in the Renosterveld, you may even find gardens which are like yours. Gardeners who are/do like you, and that like ranges all the way from casual acquaintance to I really heart your garden!

'Woolly bear' caterpillar, and when I grow up, I will be a Tri-coloured Tiger, red and white, with yellow wings

7 LinkWithin Most of us use this to bring back our golden oldies. I rather enjoy seeing thumbnails from posts, even I had forgotten. That is a downside of WordPress Related Posts, which are hoovered up from any old blog, and singularly NOT interesting.

Spiced Coffee 1

Spiced Coffee 2

8 StatCounter and ClustrMaps and BloggerInDraft new-Stats-gadgets. Between these three, I can see where my readers Came From (both website and country, or direct from Google Reader or…). What Keywords they used to get here. The Ungardener asks – But WHY do they download our pictures? 188 so far. Here is one answer olga-1821.livejournal  A good answer, if you translate the Russian, she has linked back to my post, and brought me a bunch of new readers visiting from Russia! Olga ‘teaches Modern Greek at the Orthodox Seminary of St. Petersburg’ How exotic that sounds - and yet, how many sermons have I heard - in the original Greek that word means ... ?

Spiced coffee 3

Spiced Coffee 4

  

9 To check if your blog is one of those where the reader wanders off, instead of waiting … and waiting … then going instead to the next blog! Numion Stopwatch will give you a simple answer – your blog takes … seconds to load. Octagate SiteTimer will break it down, and tell you that … b a d g e  is what slows you down, and that  l i n k  to … 

Bee on white daisy

10 Then we close with the dreaded viruses and malware. I use Antivir on this laptop (because Andre said so, and also for the ditsy blonde reassurance of the icon on the toolbar, when you switch on the little red umbrella is closed, as soon as it has ‘phoned home’ the umbrella opens and my computer is protected!). AVG is used on our desktop and at ThreeWisdoms about-computer-virus-protection. Windows Defender, because it is there. Piriform CC Cleaner and Glary-utilities for efficiency and removing assorted gunk.

Blogging-tools-I-use-1-5 I did on Wednesday. All of these software tools are free. I much appreciate your comments, and I would like to read about the blogging tools YOU use. After all, that is how I once found these, painstakingly, one by one, on your blogs! 

Pictures and words by Diana of Elephant's Eye 

Blogging tools I use 1-5, garnished with September’s flowers

Around the 25th I wander around our garden gathering a virtual bouquet. This month, read the blogging tools. Or look at the pictures (for non-bloggers and the Ungardener!)

1. Blogger/blogspot is my host. GardenBloggers New-simplicity-template The one thing that draws me to WordPress would be the ability to use CommentLuv. I did try. Then I found a new Blogger widget for Recent Comments. For the Recent Posts widget  – I have chosen thumbnail, a few words. And clickable Title, Comments, More. My aim is always a compromise between speed of loading (Don’t go away …) and enough to draw you in and on. My Blogroll has only the most recently published 10. But you can click, Show All. (A blogroll including one that says Bye-bye I Have Stopped Blogging, just doesn’t hack it!) And I recently discovered that B logo top left, will click you thru to your dashboard.

Lachenalia

White September flowers

2 Experiment with the software that comes with your camera. And if you are a sucker for collages like me (one way to pack in more pictures) there is Picasa. Go to FileHippo to download software quickly (Tx Andre computer man ;>) 

Anyone else had comments like this? From Marie sprig.co.za ‘Love your EE blog, but would it be possible to do away with the signature that detracts from some lovely pictures?’ Remember Julie and her Flower Brick Fridays, who had to take down her blog, because of a stalker? And Charlotte The Galloping Gardener, who had a string of posts stolen outright? What – you haven’t read that blog?? I'm-luckiest-woman-in-world And then it was Autumnbelle’s turn? Mynicegarden somebody-stole-my-post  Which is why bloggers include a copyright notice, in every post, with a link back to SEE This was Stolen from ME!! Sadly there are ‘bloggers’ out there, who think if you dash in for a moment, and leave the car, door open, keys in, engine running … well you obviously don’t need the car so I’ll just drive it away, before you reach your front door! And the moral of that story ...

Pink September flowers

Purple September flowers

3 Because we work hard at our blogs. Spend hours trying to capture that hummingbird, well, ours are sunbirds. And then crafting the words to fit the successful photos – we want to know if someone has stolen our work. Copyscape will tell you, for the words, but not the pictures CopyScape 

Yellow September flowers

Orange September flowers

4 And if someone is kind enough to link back to me, I would like to know that too. Search for link:http://yourblogname Then set up a link:blog feed to your Google Reader. (I did it, but search me how ... there were instructions somewhere in the Blogger help)

Bruinsalie

Veltheimia

5 You have set up a Feed from your blog, to Blotanical for one. Want to know how many readers subscribe to your feed? google feedburner

Five more tools coming on Friday.

BTW All of these software tools are free.


PS Today is Wildflower-Wednesday at Gail's Clay and Limestone.

Pictures and words by Diana of Elephant's Eye 

Ten for Ellada

Ellada has inspired me to write this post with three threads. A Frenchwoman living in Greece, who also writes in English. She writes in all THREE languages. Has tagged me. PlaisirsJardin Games
PS Ellada has changed her blog host. Find her here now - auxplaisirsdujardin-ellada.blogspot

Now I have to find ----- 10 blogs. Aha, foiled that Titanic moment. Make this technology work for you. Memorable post/blog – tuck it in my Visit Blogs folder. No longer do I have to hunt for … it is on the tip of my tongue … it’ll come to me … but I was sure it was  –  sorry having a senior moment here!

I should list ten things I love. And then point you to ten blogs. So I shall weave that together. (The things I love have anyway come up in earlier memes honest-scrap and meme-award)

Scabiosa africana

Soft leaves. Fynbos. Bluer. Sandstone slopes of the Cape Peninsula

Scabiosa incisa

Finely divided leaves. Fynbos. Pinker. Coastal sands from Piketberg to Grahamstown

1. Blotanical. I often see comments – Haven’t been to Blotanical in ages … Then you won’t know that Stuart has taken six months, his wife and kids, to travel around Australia. Aussieroadtrip Stranded-in-Cygnet in Tasmania

2. Words. I will happily read a post – with All These Words, and no pictures. Our Friend Ben and Silence Dogood Never Post Pictures and they have No-regrets

3. Languages. Come to Sweden to revel in enchanting municipal planting. Prairie. If it wasn’t for the snow in winter, I’d love to live here - Biotopedesign Sea-spot-in-Trosa

Sea spot in Trosa

  

4. Memories and introspection. Mostly words. Tightly crafted posts, and he keeps them coming. Time, is marching on … ElderlyEclecticGentleman Atom-and-Leave .

Once was a sparrow-called-spirulina then 'she' grew up into he. Spirulino

Bleddie housekeeping! Always chucking me out so they can change the towels, Sir. 

But it is nice to sleep on clean sheets.

5. Wildlife, especially, small creatures….. MeinGartenimFliesstal Auf-Schmetterlingsjagd (That's butterflies ...) Who knew, that there is a wildlife path along what once was the Berlin Wall?

Berliner Mauerweg

6. What nature did, or would have planted. Gail at Clay and Limestone celebrates Wildflower Wednesdays Nothing-to-sneeze. A meme that runs on the fourth Wednesday each month. Do come, bring your flowers with you to show us …  

7. Reading. Living green, thoughtfully. Rehabilitated authentic native grassland in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. Sharing with us, step by step, life’s journey. I always come away feeling enlightened. SusanJTweit WalkingNatureHome Lighten-up-kitchen-literacy and Thank-you for a handmade book illustrated by friends.

Susan and Richard's house

8. Mountains . Chamomilla takes us to the Carpathian Mountains, where Andy Warhol comes from Gardenless Running-with-wolves

9. LOL AuntieKsGarden That-floofy-thing-on-top? People who have So No Idea about plants. ‘Grass has flowers – you’re kidding! Right??’

Lunch is served to Pretty-in-Pink flower/crab spider. And Lunch has been eating pollen on the flower ...

10. Armchair travelling, which the Ungardener just doesn’t understand. That is a big reason why we read blogs. Let me walk your path, see thru your eyes, live your life – just for a few minutes as I read your latest post. ATidewaterGardener I heart NY

Aragon on the jetty

Scabiosa and cat. One saw stars and the other saw bars

Some familiar, some new, some new to me. But all tucked in my folder of posts I don’t want to lose. Does anyone else find that reading so many blog posts, means your mind has to change gear, when you sit down with a book? Cover to cover, hold the characters and their names in your mind? But then following blogs is like reading Dickens novels as he originally wrote them. As pot-boilers to feed his family, sold chapter by chapter. Not so different from publishing a book, in chapters on the net. Dickens as the very first e-book writer? 

Pictures from their blogs, or by Jurg and Diana, and words by Diana of Elephant's Eye 

Have you seen this Iris?

Last Friday we went to explore the hiking trails thru the spring flowers at the West Coast National Park. When I go walking I want to stop, and watch bugs, and photograph flowers. Take my time, and enjoy myself. There are cycling trails of 30 or 70 km, or even 13 km on a mountain bike. Hiking trails are one or two days – but we chose the Bakoor Trail, just 4.6 km.

Hyobanche sanguineus?? A parasite on someone else's roots

It has taken us years to get this far, and the first stop I got out of the car. Stepped down the slope onto some round pebbles. And my foot shot out, my leg folded wrong, then I landed on that leg in a crumpled ungainly heap. So I limped along part of the trail. Next year we will go a little earlier in the season. It is wonderful to be able to take photos without yelling Stop Stop I just saw a … And while we were gazing at flowers a mole-snake rumbled off indignantly past our feet.

Tapestry of colour

The patterns and textures, the lime green of the Euphorbia mauretanica flowers, the soft fluffy white cotton-bolls on the wild rosemary Eriocephalus, and bushes in a subtle range from grey to green.

Poppy, wild rosemary, Zygophyllum, Zaluzianskya

Don’t remember seeing these Flanders fields style red poppies before. Must have come as a ‘bonus’ in the sacks of wheat seeds. And that weird three winged seed head … Zygophyllum morgsana (toxic to man and beast and the common name is slaaibos, salad-bush!)  Those elaborately formed purple drum sticks are called Zaluzianskya. Years ago when I first worked at the Engineering and Science Library at the University of Cape Town, a shy young girl came to ask – she’s doing invitations for her friend’s wedding. Wants to draw these flowers, do I know what they are? And that satisfying glow, instead of GULP. Zaluzianskya villosa, common name Drumsticks.

Bakoor Trail (bat eared fox)

The Bakoor Trail starts conveniently, just inside the gate. Skirting the edge of the sand-dune. Up the steep slope where we saw the dung-beetle DETERMINED to push his ball UP the slope, and down into our footprints, and up the slope. Tiny Sisyphus!

Daisies

Ursinia anthemoides with two tone yellow petals, and a dark heart. Buttery yellow Arctotis?? Yellow daisy with magnificent seeds which outshine all the other flowers, Tripteris??

from Seeberg

The Bakoor Trail winds up to the top of Seeberg, with a wonderful view. Since I was limping along, we had to drive part way. But next year …

Mostly Scrophulariaceae

Magenta Senecio arenarius. Foxglove spots … Stachys aethiopica (sage family, aethiopica just meaning that country called Africa, south of the known world) Tiny corrugated yellow star Lyperia, Nemesia bicornis ‘from Namaqualand to Riversdale’ and pink Diascia capensis ‘with two yellow pouches’. All but the Senecio and Stachys in Scrophulariaceae (along with that Zaluzianskya and your familiar foxgloves). 

Senecio

There was a blustery breeze, so this Senecio has her hair blown all over the place. Quite a few fingers in the pictures today, as we had to hold the flowers steady.

Looking down to Flaming Jo's B 'n B 

Walk or drive up, the outlook is worth it.

Moraea Satyrium Ferraria

That last Satyrium was planted in Ramskop-wildflower-garden, these are Stop Stop growing wild. One slightly battered Moraea tripetala, a hand high miniature replica of OTT florist’s iris. And what is this?

Ferraria crispa

Admit it! You have never seen an Iris family member who looked like this. Grows tall too, winding up in the support of a bush. Ferraria crispa. Bizarre no? But rather beautiful in a weird way. This we saw while heading down to the bird hide on the edge of the salt marsh.

If you can help identify flowers please leave a comment …

And any South Africans reading this – remember you have today and tomorrow to visit our National Parks for FREE!! Check the forums at SANParks to see how the flowers are.

We have taken you to visit national parks at 

Namaqua

 Kgalagadi

 Addo

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