Take one World Heritage Site

On a perfect day. Blue sky. A fresh breeze, not cold. Just you and I here, walking. No sound, but the sand crunching under our boots. If we pause … we can hear the heritage of world murmuring past our ears.

Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area
with new roads using gabions

I was very wary of what we would find, after eighteen months of roadworks. Oh! Tarred road! And a gate. But, new signs. A World Heritage Site, and for the hours we walked, we were quite alone. We had it ALL to ourselves. Where the road dips, and had been washed out, there are now fords. The road is paved with open permeable concrete blocks. On either side, gabions. Wire cages filled with rocks. Beyond the road works, bare soil, but they mostly worked just on one side of the road. The Other Side is now lush and green. In time the gabions will collect soil and seeds. Already they begin to green over.

Walking in the Groot Winterhoek

Our first rain has begun to cut the new channel down to the stream, in the valley between us and the distant mountain. Clear cold water, which will find its way down through and over the rock. To the Voelvlei dam for the city of Cape Town. This is both a water catchment area, and a wilderness area.

After fire, comes the green
The sandstone crumbles to fierce white quartzite sand

Fynbos is adapted to fire. Above ground, sculptural dead limbs. The Protea bush is a dead skeleton, but from the roots comes the ‘next generation’. After the fire, the seedheads open and scatter billows of seed. Many fynbos plants are adapted to only germinate their seed after fire. When there is space for a seedling to stake a claim.

The grasses, the restios, and the sprouting Protea

Willdenowia a restio

And on the ground humongous vibrant green growth. The revegatation is gold and maroon and silver. Restios and grasses have reclaimed their world, before they get shaded out by Protea bushes.

Nerine or Hessea cinnamomea? Erica sp.
Oxalis sp.

Protea neriifolia
the same species we saw driving up the pass

The air is like champagne. Our mediterranean climate doesn’t bring us crisp revitalising air, but up on the mountain, is different. Here there will be frost and snow in winter. And it’s pink champagne, for all the flowers are pink today. Oxalis, (Nerine or Hessea cinnamomea? which flowers prolifically after fires, but not in cultivation), Erica and Protea.

Klipspringer in the Groot Winterhoek

Male, female
the pair together
See how the klipspringer dances on tiptoe?

We used not to see animals here, but today we saw 3 klipspringer, a grey rhebok and a troop of baboons. Teenagers and little bitty babies, with toddlers weaving in between. One mother trying to coax her dead baby back to life. And the last member of the troop. Walking on his hind legs (like us) because his front legs seemed to be just stumps. Trailing behind, unable to move as fast as the others.

Troop of baboons in the road

Young baboon sentry

Here, one of the young males, on scout duty in the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area. Open to visitors again.

We who live with a climate and plants, as in Crestridge San Diego, where fire is a part of the cycle of life, know both the horror of waiting for the flames to die, the smoke to disperse, the embers to cease glowing, even underground. And the joy of nature’s response to the first grateful gentle rain. Come up the Dasklip Pass and thru the Berghoff Protea farm to see.

PS World Heritage Site of UNESCO Cape Floral Region Protected Areas

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)

Spring Promise, from blush to shocking, pink

We moved into this ‘new’ house exactly four years ago. 2010 birthday with before pictures. The Paradise And Roses garden was planted in 2007. This fourth slice has all the blue pinks from palest hint of blush thru to the fiercest fuchsia (there’s a fox in there), and foliage aiming at blue. Would love to add Cerinthe, but it comes from the Mediterranean.

Pink pelargonium, as the picture came from the camera,
just squashed for the Internet

Spring Promise, pink roses

The pink parasol is Dais cotonifolia. A small tree with bluish leaves. It is called the pompom tree, for the clusters of pink flowers. Around Christmas? But I found flowers on it today – it is so glad to feel the rain. In both our gardens it declined sadly in high summer. Not quite suited to our heat. ‘Cultivated in Europe since 1764’ – Palgraves Trees of SA

Dais cotonifolia pompom tree

The mind and the eye see what they expect. Only 3 of these 4 beds are rectangular. And those 3 are all different sizes. Summer Gold the smallest. The largest is Spring Promise. About half of this bed is filled with wildeals Artemisia afra, and honey-flower Melianthus major. Melianthus giving the dramatic foliage to echo the Strelitzia (and the gap left by dear departed Lamb’s Ears).

Melianthus major

Melianthus major

The centre has a large gap. I wanted pink and white foliage. I see a lot of flourishing pink and white leaved plants in other Porterville gardens. I bought an icecream bush, which died very very slowly. And I learnt that what I saw, flourishing, was a variegated bougainvillea. Much too large and vigorous to tuck in here. What I had chosen, was a sub-tropical euphorbia. Really unhappy out in the real sun. No focal point to sing with the Strelitzias and the Bauhinia.

Spring Promise with sundial

Spring Promise centre

Ignore the Dusty Miller hedge as structure, rather than plant. I am looking for grey leaves that are NOT fluffy, and lean, heavily, towards BLUE. Here, as in Summer Gold, I have grass. Only Festuca glauca, but more and more clumps are encouraged. The variegated Tulbaghia has the right blue pretensions (rather than cream stripes) and its flowers sing with both pink and blue.  Dianthus and Echeveria are in this harmony.

Festuca glauca, variegated Tulbaghia
Dianthus, Echeveria

Nutmeg pelargonium has leaves that fit. Artemisia looks fluffy because the leaves are so finely divided, and smells delicious, almost liquorice. The lavender is fluffy, but its flowers are pink. And the pink pelargonium we started with, has gracefully shaped leaves, between flowering.

Pelargonium, lavender
nutmeg pelargonium, Artemisia afra   wildeals

The And Roses are a little battered. Those that were open for the heavy rain, and the coldest night we've had so far this year. But the leaves and buds are ready for a belated autumn flush. November 2011.

Chaim Soutine, Sheila's Perfume

For Wildflower-Wednesday the two pelargoniums, Dais, Melianthus, Artemisia afra, and Tulbaghia – which are the South Africans here.

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)

Berghoff proteas to Chelsea

If you were in London. At the Chelsea Flower Show and the Kirstenbosch exhibit. You could see our renosterbos, and the halfmens on the Richtersveld side. ‘The Pachypodium namaquamum on loan, will be returned to the Karoo Desert National Botanical garden, after the show’.  Looking at the fynbos side, those proteas were growing on our mountain when we went up on the 12th of May.

Berghoff protea farm

Berghoff farm school, with the distant road winding up to the Wilderness Area

Between Dasklip Pass and the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area are farms. Once were fruit, but now they have swung over to fynbos. From picked in the wild, to plantations of new cultivars.

Protea bushes planted on the mountain

Protea plantation

Planted proteas with distant Leucadendron blazing 

Proteas get their name from the god, who was able to change shape. There are the well known flowers – King proteas. Leucospermum pincushions. Lime green or burgundy Leucadendron ...  And many more.

I found fire photos taken on Berghoff protea farm. First lightning struck – we travelled thru that all the way from Swellendam, fire by fire. Then the second fire on the pass, was due to Eskom power lines shorting. There, you can also see the devastation left by pine plantations, which blaze like torches. And the fruit orchard next to it, still green, despite the fire.

Alien trees felled, and chipped

I went down to show you how the individual flowers are packed in plastic mesh bags. Florists and their customers, require flowers that are perfect, unmarked by nature. Curiously plastic and artificial to look at. Years ago, to protect the flowers from birds – a tall stick painted yellow was placed in each protea bush. Coated with bird poison, it killed the sugarbirds. We have, thankfully, moved on.

Would you like a bag with that?

This protea farm is sustainable, but I have to remind myself, that doesn’t equal organic. We did see them spraying. I suppose to prevent beetles chewing on the merchandise and making it unsaleable.

Protea flowers bagged, for Chelsea et al.

I went down again. See the fist sized rock under my boot. I didn’t. But she admitted it was her fault, she’d been runned over before. Cameras are dangerous. I stepped back to frame a wider view. And went down, bravely defending the camera. With such a thump that the battery door burst open. But, I retained the batteries. Skinned my elbow and still have the technicoloured fist of Berghoff emblazoned on my hip. All in the cause of the blog.

before the fall ...

Berghoff is a New South African good news story. Mountain Dew­­ is the associated black empowerment protea farm. – ‘Two Western Cape workers from the cut flower industry’ - will be accompanying the flowers to Chelsea. ‘Edwin Gouws is a trustee of the Mountain Dew empowerment farm, and Dorah Siduka is a production supervisor at Fynsa, a flower packing shed’. Fynsa supplies our Pick n Pay and England’s Marks & Spencer. ‘United Nations Development Programme last year found that full-time employment has doubled under the sustainable harvesting programme, and payments to flower pickers increased six-fold’.

Leucadendron

Our third stop will be the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area.

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)

Winter Chill, and silvery greys

Planted in 2007. Winter Chill was inspired by icy pastels in a snow bank. Any colour so long as it is barely there. Reinforced by swathes of silvery grey velvety foliage. The informal hedge of Dusty Miller is part of this Paradise And Roses bed.

Winter Chill, missing a few roses

I look at the garden, and see a roll call of what I once planted there … Microclimates again. Don’t believe everything you see. South African plants with grey fur, are tough. But the Lamb’s Ears, are fragile, despite being Mediterranean. And mine are dead. Leaving a gaping hole in the centre, Mr Venter. Reader’s Digest Carefree Plants – ‘with long, hot summers plant in afternoon shade. In early spring harvest new plantlets’. 

The Centre, ho hum

The Santolina, cotton lavender, started as a few gnarled elderly cuttings from my mother, and now need armfuls cut back. Also from the Mediterranean. This grey fur IS a sunshade.

Santolina, Dusty Miller

We have And Roses. Pearl of Bedfordview is in flower. Took the photos, walked past again, and thought, what’s that green blur?? And found a preying mantis dining on a bee. Later, only the discarded ‘bones’ were left.

Pearl of Bedfordview, with preying mantis

Great North is a pillar rose. The new growth is at my shoulder.

Great North

Oyster Pearl has buds. Silver Cloud, having died back for the second time, is sprouting nicely. Spiced Coffee is trying again. Nicole has left, taking miniature Tiny Tots with her. Five survivors fed and watered this afternoon.

Oyster Pearl bud

Our mediterranean summer needs a parasol. Tarchonanthus camphoratus, one of those shrubs/small trees I favour which can be pruned to taste. It has a gnarled and twisted habit of growth. Started leaning. So I cut it back. And it sulked. Never cut the leader … Now it is growing with enthusiasm. Fragrant, lightly camphor scented leaves. A daisy tree with tiny white thistle flowers, which turn to fluff the birds like for nest lining. Palgraves Trees of Southern Africa – ‘grows from coastal dunes to the fringes of mountain forests and in the Karoo semi-desert’. This bed gets blasted with all the sun there is. And the heat radiating from the house wall.

Tarchonanthus camphoratus

The dominant plant here is the blue sage, but the camphorbush is catching up. The lower focal point is Bauhinia natalensis. I love those tiny butterfly leaves.

Blue sage, Bauhinia natalensis

Filling in the gaps – two clumps of Eucharis, which have a few Narcissus muddled in with them. Scabiosa africana and incanum. Coleonema and knoffelbuchu, garlic buchu. Dimorphotheca jucunda – I wanted the white daisy flowers, but this is very GREEN. Would prefer Van Staden’s daisy which is more herbaceous perennial.

Eucharis, knoffelbuchu
Scabiosa

I would like to add two clumps of smallish non-invasive grass with white seedheads. There is a wild grass blooming now … When I started I deliberately set out to make the borders a mingled tapestry effect. Now I see messy and confused. So I’ll fill these gaps with more Santolina. Both silver velvet, and happy here. 


Fast forward to  November 2011.

Words and pictures

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) 

Dasklip Pass to Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area

After the fire-on-our-mountain, we went up to the reserve on the mountain  to see the fire-flowers.  Then they closed the reserve to repair the roads, after fire followed by very heavy rain caused erosion damage. Eighteen months later, the reserve is partially reopened . Last week we went, with trepidation, to see what 18 months of road works looks like, in a wilderness area.

with Google Earth
from Porterville up the Dasklip Pass
to the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area

Porterville looks up at the Olifantskop (Elephant Head). Our good fortune that the house faces the double kloof on that long ridge of foothills. From the town you cannot see the Groot and Klein Winterhoek mountains (Great and Small Winter Peaks).

The road leads out of town towards Clanwilliam. A few fields later  is a turnoff to the Dasklip Pass.  A rough dirt road linking farms. Then the tarred road up the pass. The road twists and turns, just wide enough for two cars. If the second is a bakkie with a trailer loaded with firewood, one of you must wait, where he can.

Young protea bushes and wheat fields 

We are now on the mountain slopes in fynbos. Proteas, and the huge diversity which is fynbos. Looking down at the wheatfields patchworked across the wide valley. Always a fire burning in the stubble somewhere. The shade trees planted along the roads, are the ubiquitous Eucalyptus, which take all the water they can get.

towards Clanwilliam

There have been two or three more fires. Burnt skeletons of protea bushes stand as reminders, snags above the fresh green. Not spring, but autumn in the Western Cape, when the rains come, after a long hot dry summer.

Dasklip Pass
looking across to Piekenierskloof Pass

Looking back along the ridge of mountains which joins the Cederberg range around Clanwilliam.  Hanggliding and paragliding championships are held here. 

what you would see, if you were floating on the thermals

A wide open valley in a huge bowl of mountain. These Cape Fold Belt mountains reach down to Table Mountain, Cape Point and beyond.

On the slopes of Table Mountain is a memorial plaque  for an early forester. His name I don’t remember. But the sentiment was – he came and found nothing (= fynbos) and left all these trees (= pine plantation). Ideas change, the fynbos now has an acknowledged value, and the pines must go. He meant well, what use are protea bushes, you can’t harvest them! Today we have protea plantations supplying cut flowers.

Pine trees and protea plantations

There is an uninformed prejudice against fynbos. No trees, no shade. But in the kloofs, where there is shade, and in winter streams flow, there are tall shrubs and trees. Leafy green lushness.

Kloof on Dasklip Pass

Proteas are blooming now. From – Marie Vogts’ Proteaceae – ‘the first plant of southern Africa ever to be described, years before Van Riebeeck landed here. Named by Robert Brown 1773-1859 Keeper of Botany for the British Museum, who published the family name Proteaceae for the first time’. Protea neriifolia. A bearded protea, for the fluffy edge on the bracts. Both bracts and beards vary in colour across its range.

Protea neriifolia

Protea neriifolia fading

Next – the Berghoff protea farm, then the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area.

Words and pictures
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)