Rocher Pan, birds by the sea

Yesterday when we went to the sea, the sun shone. Today the promised rain is not a thundershower, but very very gentle.

When the Ungardener yearns for sea air, our nearest beach is Eland’s Bay, a small town, good for surfing. We prefer Rocher Pan. Cape Nature Conservation reserve, a wetland which sweeps down to the sea, beyond the dunes. 914 hectares, the reserve, established in 1967, is a seasonal vlei, dry between March and June. The Atlantic Ocean stretch of marine reserve was declared in 1988. The hours we spent there yesterday, we had the whole place to ourselves. Just had to share with three ostriches, who disappeared in affronted horror, at Intruders, on Our Patch!! Who, why Rocher?  Perde-kaf-en-koffers-a-story-from-the-West-Coast.

Top left the 'mountain with stormy clouds'?, right the bigger picture
Rocher Pan

There was still some water in the pan, near the thru road, the ranger’s house and the first bird hide. At the second hide the pan was dry.

A group of avocets in the distance, their upturned bills making them unmistakable. A few blacksmith lap-wings. Couple of little stints. Vivid contrast to a photo of proud Victorian hunters with a mountain of dead ducks We Just Shot.

Blacksmith lap-wing
Avocets
To the right, little stint

He sees birds, I see flowers. This almost Euphorbia green daisy was highlighting the vegetation on the shore of the pan.

Pteronia uncinata Asteraceae

Then we drove the track up the sand dune. While we had a quick picnic lunch, I discovered a mistletoe. Red berries just like a Christmas card, tho there is another species with Northern style white berries.

Maurocenia
with Viscum rotundifolium, red mistletoe
and an asparagus fern

Then we wandered quietly along a sweep of beach. To the South in the far distance a haze of white houses at Laaiplek. To the North a deeper band of sky blue, the mountain ridge of Eland’s Bay at the sea end of Verlorenvlei.

Sea at Rocher Pan

There must have been a recent, fairly gentle high tide. The beach was strewn with jellyfish.

Jellyfish

That retreating tide left riffles of sand, and pavements of meticulously level and carefully spaced shell mosaic. 

Sea textures at Rocher Pan

One of our most endangered birds is the African black oystercatchers. Endangered because they nest on the shore, where the brain damaged roar up and down on quad bikes and bakkies to go fishing, and just because they can. This pair of birds flew up and circled round, settling again as we walked on.

African black oystercatchers

The Ungardener found a sleeping seal. As he tried to get closer for a better picture, the seal woke up, yelled at him, and returned to the sea. There were dolphins, and flocks of birds gathered above a shoal of fish.

Seal - I was asleep!

The sea and I

Sitting alone, gazing out to sea. I see nothing but the sea. I hear nothing but the waves.  

Pictures by Jurg and Diana,

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)

March lilies in 2011

For Alice, and all my readers with March birthdays, and a heart for South Africa.

Amaryllis belladonna

In March the Western Cape heaves a deep sigh of relief. Autumn! Not so much last year, when we had an unseasonal heat wave and the mountains caught fire. In Swellendam we were caught in a thunderstorm and even the car complained. Then the heavens opened and we waded thru floods. Looking from our hotel room, first to Is That SMOKE, later the red glow of flames blazing behind the mountain. And again and again travelling home from Swellendam to Porterville there were fires along the mountains. A horrifying sight.

March lily buds

This March has been kinder, and we hope that the next few days will bring us some rain to add to the THREE millimetres we have had so far this month (last year we had 17 mm in March). The fynbos in the Western Cape, in a good year –  a recovering from a previous fire year, has drifts and swathes of March lilies. Along the roads, as we rush thru our busy lives, these flamboyant flowers are unmissable. Even in gardens, if the wild is allowed to flower!

March lilies opening

March lily just opened

Later these flowers will make large green seeds, almost as big as grapes. The seedlings grow easily where the seed falls. And these plants multiply. I can imagine them becoming an invasive problem elsewhere – but we love that encouraging sign that autumn is here and our gardens are returning to life. Later still, when the party is over, the bulbs will send up the daily grind of green leaves for next year’s flowers. And then the long rest below ground, aestivation, avoiding the summer’s blast of heat.

March lilies fully open

The flowers open white, deepening to pink as the flowers ‘grow up’ and wear their grownup party dresses.

A March lily

Pink petals on March lily

From PlantZAfrica

·     The family Amaryllidaceae forms a large group of over sixty genera, which are mainly centred in the southern Africa with smaller distributions in Andean South America.

·        Other genera that belong to this family that have horticultural importance and are found in southern Africa include Clivia, Crinum, Cyrthanthus, Nerine and Scadoxus.

·     Hippeastrum, which some gardeners mistakenly call amaryllis, is a large South American genus.

·        Other northern hemisphere genera include Narcissus (daffodils), Galanthus and Leucojum

Growing amaryllids advice from the Harold Porter National Botanical Garden.

Stamens of the March lilies

March lily pollen

All these stages in this flower’s life were photographed on the 22nd. From the emerging bud, thru the opening and fully opened flower, all the way to pollen on the stamens.

For Gail at Clay and Limestone’s Wildflower-Wednesday meme.

And just for fun in a free moment over the weekend  Cheese or Font???

Pictures and 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)

Two silvery grey trees

Brachylaena and Tarchonanthus

I love grey foliage. My Dusty Millers, now in need of rejuvenation. Take cuttings and make silver fountains again, instead of the broken golden limbs. The lamb’s ears, a beautiful idea, but they too are withered and gone. Will spread the Santolina instead. They are both commonorgarden foreigners.

Brachylaena discolor

Brachylaena discolor

Grey foliage is more striking when it is a treeful.  We planted Brachylaena in the Camps Bay garden. The underneath of the leaves is silver, and they flash when the breeze catches them. Ours was planted in the far bottom corner. Where as the years passed, we saw, a gnarled grey trunk, and our neighbours saw, the dancing silver leaves. In this garden we have planted a few between us and the wall towards the mountain view. And yesterday I saw our silver leaves dancing. The tree is now taller than I am, tho still looking pretty much like an overgrown shrub.

Brachylaena discolor, coast silver oak, Asteraceae/daisy family. Found in forest, and down to sand dunes. From the Eastern Cape to Mozambique, so not strictly local. Discolor for the leaves which are green above and silver below.  The wood is used for boatbuilding, fence posts and carving. Nectar, bees, birds. Makes good honey. Shade, full sun, or containers. From PlantZAfrica.

Tarchonanthus camphoratus

Tarchonanthus camphoratus

The camphor bush we also had planted at the bottom of the old garden. This smells delectable and grew up into a tunnel we could walk thru. I have one in the rose garden, just outside the window, where the fragrance wafts into the living room on hot summer evenings. This too, when it grows up, will offer the gnarled trunk and the silver leaves. These don’t dance, it is beneath their dignity.

Tarchonanthus camphoratus. Another daisy tree. Wind, salt sea breezes, drought, burnt to the ground – this little tree is a tough survivor. The fruit is covered with cottony fluff. Both of these trees have male and female flowers on separate trees, and they are closely related. Kudu, giraffe, impala and springbok browse the leaves. Can be used for bonsai … hmm. Again from plantzafrica tarchoncamphor and plantzafrica tarchonlit. The plant I knew has been divided into 5 species, mine is probably now littoralis.

What shall I blog today, was inspired by Deb’s Garden and her Alabama croton.

Rain 1 mm 80 litres

Last night it rained. For the first time in eleven weeks. A short sharp thundershower, that sent the cats diving under the bed. Just over one millimetre. The two rain tanks that drain half of our roof, collected over eighty litres. This morning the ground was damp, and some plants shake out the first green leaves. But really, 1 mm, doesn't hack it. Still waiting. For rain.

PS Just harvested a BlotSprout. We (that is Belinda) have sorted her feed to Blotanical, and we (that is Blotanists) can now pick her posts. I pick this one Wildacreflowers Fresh-flowers-and-cupcakes!!

Pictures and 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)

Sustain Ability

Jan at thanksfor2day has a meme Sustainable-Living-Project. Last year I shared what we do, how we live. Now I am made aware that we have added nothing new, to what we always did. Three-challenges-to-sustainability.

We get muddled up, which of the Rs is the important one. First, reduce. If you don’t need to print this page, you don’t need to use the toner (which they say weight for weight is more expensive than Joy perfume), transport the paper and toner, manufacture the paper and toner, fell the trees, use fossil oil, to print a page you will never look at again?!  I am befuddled by the new minimalism. The A B Cs of simple living. We are so materialistic, such great consumers, that we need a glossy magazine called Simple Life, to explain it all to us. If you have a solar panel to heat your hot water – South Africa doesn’t need another nuclear power station. Carbon-neutral-blogging with coopette. And this is my dream for a new world an intelligent green office building in Golden Colorado. Dreaming New Mexico. Meanwhile, back in Cape Town guilt free green rides. From WWF  Brave-new-world-fuelled-by-clean-economical-energy-possible-and-imperative-by-2050. Renewable-energy-across-the-globe

Solar panels for hot water

Second, what you cannot reduce, at least reuse. One of our neighbours objects to the local golf course using water straight from the dam. Untreated, unmetered, ‘free’. I object to people with boreholes. Their water is just as untreated, unmetered, ‘free’. Oh, said she, I never thought of that … We use most of our treated, metered water twice. What goes into the pond, and the people, is used just the once. But we have a four legged grey water system.

The Ungardener's grey water system

A close second is repurpose. We have no lawn, at the old house, or this one. Turn a jaundiced and realistic eye on your lawn. Use that water, and money time and resources in chemical fertiliser, weed killing and mowing – either to feed people, or to sustain wildlife. While we are sustaining wildlife, be mindful of invasive alien species. Podcast with Doug Tallamy.  NOT just plants! Look again at those thatched English cottages.

Cape laughing dove, bathing in the relined and refilled Ungardening Pond

And the poor fourth is recycle. Which would only be meaningful if you actually use, what is made of what you so thoughtfully and carefully recycled. If you won’t/don’t buy recycled, you might as well send it to landfill, and be done. Recycled goods are only worth something if they can be sold on, converted back into a link in the consumer goods cycle. Post consumer waste with Meredith, rather than what they can harvest in offcuts at the factory. Compost, not methane from landfill.

Blue sage

This post is dedicated to the people of Japan.

Particularly to the workers risking their lives

for our greater good, at Fukushima nuclear reactor.

Lichen as a symbol of unpolluted air

Greenpeace Switzerland is keeping a vigil for the people in Japan, even in the village of Schonenwerd, where the Ungardener was born. While reading blogs in German, on Schweizergarten, I found a comment by Borkergarten. So many garden bloggers are tortured by - how can I prattle about My Garden NOW??!! Remembering the bombing of Dresden. Quoting Martin Luther  

If I thought the world was going to end tomorrow,

I would plant an apple tree.

The apple tree as a symbol of hope. Johnny Appleseed, for my USA readers.

March lily, Amaryllis belladonna
Already blooming in Cape Town

Closing with youtube Jesus Christ The Apple Tree. And some light relief  Investicatting.

Pictures by Jurg and Diana,

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)

Blogspot and Chrome COMpatible, first March lily

Yesterday incompatible ... today blogspot/Chrome irrits are sorted!

Irrits, horror and hope

To other bloggers on blogspot. If you use Google Chrome as a browser, and blogspot as your blog host, you can TA DA, AGAIN see those nice new blog stats. Google HAS got its act together today!! I use gmail and blogspot and Google Chrome. Loyal to the same house, brand, family – because I expect them to talk the same language, and be made to work together.

Grateful for StatCounter which remains reliable, and has an actual Help, where a human being answers your questions!!

Also battling with pictures. When I put a link to my blog on FaceBook, I used to be able to choose which thumbnail. Still can for links to OTHER blogs! Then it was only 1, yes or no?! Then it was always the closing signature. Now back to the first picture in each post. This same problem hits, where you are kind enough to put me on your Blogroll. Blogspots with no picture on the roll, lose out on readers.

Looking across to the Cape Town Stadium
with Signal Hill 

The unfolding problems with the nuclear reactors in Japan, turn my attention to Koeberg nuclear power station very near to Cape Town. Last trip we stopped at Woodbridge Island at Milnerton. As we walked down to look across the beach back to the city, I remember. In a different less sandy season, this was the beach where I found my pink bird in flight. Now we look across to the Cape Town Stadium, built for the Soccer World Cup. Changing the face of the city, asTampax Towers once did.  There is a story my mother likes to tell. The mayor was out at sea, looking at the city. ‘Who approved those towers?’ ‘You did, Sir’

From Milnerton beach and Woodbridge Island
to Table Mountain with its tablecloth, Lion's Head and Signal Hill

This beach where we stand is just 23 kilometres / 14 miles from Koeberg. Approximately the exclusion zone they are evacuating in Japan. The Japanese are told to stay inside, and close windows. Ours is a mixture of middle class housing, and townships on the Cape Flats. RDP houses and squatter shacks. No way to ‘close out’ radiation. Fukushima disaster - nukes are not green

March Lily Amaryllis belladonna 

It is March, and our first March lily has revealed its tightly folded wings. From Sunday to today the stem grows longer. Hope for the future.

Birds on Midway Atoll after tsunami

Pictures by Jurg and Diana,

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)

March garden walk

Mid-month I aim to cover exotic, alien, commonorgarden plants blooming in our garden. Especially the roses. Yes, well. It has been a long hot summer, about 10 weeks with no rain. And each time I look, another plant has waved goodbye. Apparently the roses have thrips, tiny creatures who come from the hot dry Out There to lovely luscious, fed and watered, yummy roses. Today I fed the roses and watered them to encourage the autumn flush, which should be their best time of year. There are buds, both flowers, and leaves coming up from the base. We’ll see. If this autumn weather holds kind, and does not hammer us with an unseasonal heat wave, as it did last year. Then, we lost many of our optimistic newly planted olive trees.

When the Ungardener is Ungardening on the roof – you know, leaves out of the gutters, resealing the chimney, pictures for blog readers … So you walk down the driveway past the olives, and our greener neighbours, around the curved wall of the rose garden, which I call Paradise. Perhaps I should call it the And Roses garden.

Paradise, the rose garden

The rose garden, Plum Creek, Ungardening Pond
and greener neighbours on this side

From the And Roses garden you cross the bridge at Plum Creek and walk around Ungardening Pond which has been half filled again. Behind the waterfall, along the Woodland Walk. Pause at Rest and Be Thankful.

Ungardening Pond, with Black Stork Island and Rest and Be Thankful

Pond, ash tree, and unhappy borders

Between the ash trees, looking at planters with some sad Clivia. Cymbidium pots in the shade. Glance at the Folie de MIIX, where my spring bulbs wait, with Eucomis and Merwillea, some bright pink Oxalis, and spotted leaf Drimiopsis.  Agapanthus in large terracotta pots. Ignore the pink border and the blue and purple border. We do have Plumbago and Tulbaghia there. The path beaten while repairing the pond, is also a project for new ideas.

Ash tree, another view of the unsuccessful bits

In the shade of the ash tree is our Karoo Koppie. Then Apple Creek, some green relief on this side. Elephant’s Eye Light Railway. Also hidden in the shade is the Mediterranean Sun Circle – which catches the sun in winter, when it is more welcome.

In the shade, the Karoo Koppie
Apple Creek
This neighbour has an invasive NZ manitoka
and a row of really nasty invasive beefwood trees

Around to the washing lines, compost bins, the fig trees, the Swiss stacked wood for winter.

We have fig trees
they have Agent Orange.
If it is green they nuke it, again and again
Just leaving a lemon tree and some grape vines.

Ending back where we started at the (invasive) giant or Spanish reeds. Those for which the French town of Cannes was once named. From this bird’s eye view, we see not how high they grow, but what a wide area they cover.

Invasive giant or Spanish reeds
where our weavers build their nests

Come the April walk, I hope and wish for roses, worth picking. When I look at the New Zealand bush, it is hard to believe I once picked a dozen of its blooms for my mother’s birthday!?

The poll I ran in February drew 40 votes.

Just 2 for daily posts, and 7 who post as they wish and read when we  publish. 

But 34 voted for 1 to 3 posts weekly – which is what I write, and hope to read!

Watching the earthquake and the tsunami in Japan, looking at the Pacific Ring of Fire, the here and now of my garden seems irrelevant. Thinking of islands, where, if you can see the tsunami coming, it is too late to run. The wall of water approaches with the speed of a Boeing.  

Pictures by 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)