11 October, 2011

Foreign flowers in our October garden


I did try for the long view, instead of the pretty flowers. When we look at A Flower, the camera and I are mostly on the same page. The long view leaves me befuddled. Why doesn't the &%$#ing camera see what I see? Overexposed, or focused on a plane the human eye doesn't notice. The wrong edge of the wrong petal, of the wrong blooming flower!

Walking down the driveway as you turn to the front door the edge of the gravel has a bunker of nasturtiums. The summer sun starts to bite, and later will shrizzle the leaves, leaving the seed to wait for March, coolth, and the first rain. But for now we have thousands of flowers.

Nasturtiums AKA Cistercians here

In the pond are frogs and tadpoles the size of my thumb.
The pink waterlily is hiding its glory behind the island. And fighting a quiet battle with the tiny duckweed. We scoop it out by the bucketload, turn away for a moment, and half the pond is covered, again.

Waterlilies

This year the plums have lots of blossom, so we should get fruit. Prunus nigra, bought for its deep purple leaves, after blooming at the beginning of September, is covered in plums the size of my thumbnail. Anyone know if they are edible? 

Left blossom on edible plum
Right thumbnail sized fruit on Prunus nigra

This year the roses were lightly groomed. October and November should be their best months, so they are back to a monthly sprinkle of Talborne certified organic. And these two legs of the grey water system try for ten litres per bush every 5 or 6 days.

Dainty Bess, Tropical Sunset
Pearl of Bedfordview

Pink-Ribbon-1-Winter-Chill The first of Dainty Bess, with striped Tropical Sunset, and Pearl of Bedfordview being generous.

Left Courvoisier
Right Sheila's Perfume

Pink-Ribbon-2-Summer-Gold Courvoisier and Sheila’s Perfume already offering flowers to pick and bunches of promising buds.

Papa Meilland, Elizabeth of Glamis
Alec's Red

Pink-Ribbon-3-Autumn-Fire Papa Meilland, Elizabeth of Glamis, and Alec’s Red. Yes, we have roses to pick again.

Top left Lavender Jade
Burning Sky

Pink-Ribbon-4-Spring-Promise Lavender Jade and Burning Sky, in life quite clearly two different roses. A delicate miniature and a vigorous tall hybrid tea, but both exactly the same colour. 

Pink lavender

Mexican feather grass Mare's Tails
Japanese maple

I bring foreign flowers today. Mexican feather grass. Even the Japanese maple has flowers!
  








Pictures by Diana (and Jurg)
words by Diana of Elephant's Eye
- wildlife gardening in Porterville,
near Cape Town in South Africa

(If you mouse over brown text,
it turns shriek pink. Those are my links.)

34 comments:

  1. Know exactly what you mean about the auto focus zooming in on NOT what I'm looking at LOL

    And the photo's of the flowers are stunning :)

    Do you ever make "poor man's capers" from the seeds?

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  2. Ah, very interesting, Diana! Your October garden is lovely ... and I especially love your nasturtiums. I love them in salads and stuffed with guacamole.

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  3. Lots happening.

    Given our hemispheres, I hadn't expected you and I would have nasturtiums in flower at the same time.

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  4. You hit 3 things in one post...camera, garden, and blog! That was frustrating for me as well with my older camera....now as an early holiday present, I have a camera that allows me to focus myself!!! It has made my life A LOT easier! Your garden looks great....the roses here are beginning to bloom as well. Third, the stats. I wish blogger had the why attacked to it....it's interesting to see how people are led to the blog, isn't it? It's kind of a fun to check. Sometimes I laugh at what people are searching for!!!

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  5. Diana so jealous of your gorgeous flowers. You certainly are having a lovely season of blooms happening so far South...those nasturtiums are so gorgeous and the roses...wow..see you at Gesine's blog!! Haven't made the complete move to Goggle+. Once I put the garden to bed in November I will have more time to explore it and get back to Blotanical more...I will look you up at g+

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  6. Your October garden is beautiful Diana. The water lilies on the pond just look so wonderful. The roses really caught my eye since I love roses. The yellow Courvoisier has such a pretty form and Shelia's Perfume is fantastic. I love the yellows and oranges in it. The miniature Lavender Jade is such a pretty little bloom.

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  7. Joey - gaucamole in nasturtium flowers - I love to look at your recipes, but THIS idea I could eat as it's vegetarian ;~)

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  8. How lovely is your garden....I must go there!

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  9. Indeed you can eat the plums..the form is somewhat 'tart' but perfect for stewing! Lovely!

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  10. A little confused by the techi blog stuff. well done you for pursing it!

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  11. It's all looking so good! Great to see all your wonderful roses, just as ours are fading and falling.

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  12. Oh, roses! How gorgeous they are! Pearl of Bedfordview is really beautiful. But I also love the oranges. And your lavender looks so happy! Now I realize how unhappy mine must be!

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  13. So why are Nasties called Cistercians on the flip side? I'm always amused when I see flowers in your spring garden when they are quickly disappearing here.

    I wonder about blog scraping with my blog on Tumblr. Most Tumbleblogs aren't searchable via Google. From rudimentary searches, it doesn't seem anyone is trying to crib my stuff. Granted, based on stats and comments, I've fallen into something of a black hole of non-interest recently, so I doubt anyone would be interested in plagarising me!

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  14. I love the light on that grass photo, I seem to be failing to get grasses standing still without the wind giving me the blur! You have lovely blooms in there. But regarding the IT, like Catharine above, i still have the low IT IQ.

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  15. I sympathize with your photography frustrations. While macro shots are nice they don't really show us how it is.

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  16. You may not admit it, but you seem to know just about as much about your blog stats ans the like than you do about flowers. I am always impressed with the amount of comments you get when I visit your blog. Comments is one thing I struggle with. My stats show that I do get a fair amount of visitors, but I just don't seem to get comments.

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  17. Susan - Nasties?! I am deeply hurt. The Ungardener calls them Cistercians, all these English words sound the same to his Swiss ears.

    Firefly - Comments? If I have a comment from someone new, or not on my reading list, I go visit and leave a comment. You often earn a comment, just because my stats show me a visitor Came From Firefly. And then, to get comments, leave comments. Lots, especially if there are not many on that blog!! BTW I copy and paste this, so it works for both you and me.

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  18. In my new life i too will be technosavvy - in fact will need to be. Tomorrow I start the internet-connection-ball rolling - I hope!! Thanks for the lesson meanwhile.

    We used to eat the little plums as kids - because they were there. Not really tasty; perhaps a jam or jelly?

    Your roses are well ahead of mine - but then I did only prune in mid August... Enjoy your flowery garden, Diana!

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  19. I had a good chuckle at your introduction Diana. How many times have I brought up photos on my computer only to wonder, why doesn't the photo look anything like what I saw? such disappointment. But now I'm learning to shoot the light instead of the object and it seems to work better for me.

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  20. I always appreciate your little blogging tidbits. They are always helpful.

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  21. Dear Diana, oh guru of the blogspot world, leader of we nincompoops . . . Do you use Google Webmaster? (You've probably told us but I can't remember.) I registered but my blog isn't there - it says I have to verify it. Do you think I can find out how to verify it? Clearly not - or I would not be asking for your very wonderful help! I can find the 'head' bit in the html (I think I have the right place) but simply putting the code there doesn't work. The only time it accepted change of template, the code appeared at the top of the blog for all the world to see - so I took it off again.

    I've tried Google help forums and haven't found anything that works / makes sense / I can understand so, who do I turn to? You.

    Please?

    Lucy

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  22. Lucy - I have, from my Google Account page, a button for Webmaster Tools. Tucked in my bookmarks, but sadly no longer have any idea where/how I got access. BAD guru, sorry.

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  23. Diana, I hear you about the longshot...it never appears in my photos as I see it. But, I love macro shots and looking at pretty flowers so I don't mind! I was just looking at my stats before I popped over here. Fascinating who all visits us. gail

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  24. Oh wow - I love your roses!!! They are looking spectacular! And your lavender - so pretty, I have those too - the Rasberry Blush! And the plums..... so tantilizing! Thank you for your display! Marvelous!

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  25. Am attracted to the edible plum... it looks so delicious...

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  26. I understand completely--your photography frustrations... But-your photos are awesome as usual! I love the photo of the waterlilies and the Japanese Maple. Happy GBBD :)

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  27. aloha diana,

    i love seeing spring in your world...wow i forgot you had so many roses and they are perfect!

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  28. Just beautiful -- I've never seen lavendar like that before.

    Thanks for pointing me in the direction of some blogging tips. I really need to get with the program:)

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  29. Dear Diana, I'm not attempting to take long shots right now as both my camera and I see only a mess. Thank goodness for macros. Your October garden is amazing. Happy Bloom Day! P. x

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  30. I forgot to show one of my own "foreign" flowers in my post today--one of your (i.e., South Africa's) proteas. Local, foreign, they're all quite lovely. Even the roses, which my heart has grown a little chilled towards, look compelling. For closeup photography of the bloomday sort I'm finding I'm turning off the camera's auto-focus more and more. Focus by algorithm doesn't work well for plants or flowers.

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  31. Lovely flowers, especially the roses and the pink lavender. Happy GBBD.

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  32. I'm so jealous of your Water Lilies...they are gorgeous!

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  33. Dear Diana,
    vielen Dank, daß du wieder mitgemacht hast und Blogger Blüten unterstützt!
    Leider bin ich vorher überhaupt nicht dazu gekommen, deinen und die anderen Beiträge zu lesen und auch erst meine Bilder konnte ich vorhin erst hinzufügen...
    Deine Rosen sind wunderschön, auch die Seerosen!
    Viele Grüße von der gestressten und kranken
    Gesine

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  34. hallo Diana,
    wundervoll ist Dein Garten, ich komme gerne wieder

    liebe Grüße zu Dir von Traudi

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Photographs and Copyright

Photographs are from Diana Studer or Jurg Studer.
My Canon PowerShot A490

If I use your images or information, it will be clearly acknowledged with either a link to the website, or details of the book. If you use my images or words, I expect you to acknowledge them in turn.


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