Wildflower Wednesday and First of Advent

Gail at Clay and Limestone’s Wildflower Wednesday is usually my chance to walk around the garden – collecting what is blooming to attention. But they must be indigenous, native to South Africa. As I did last November. Today our wild iris Dietes will monopolise this WFW. It began life as part of my free seed allocation for members of the Botanical Society based at Kirstenbosch. Now it is SANBI South African National Biodiversity Institute  which hosts the PlantZAfrica site I like to use. Biodiversity e.g. barn swallow migration and climate change.

Dietes grandiflora

Dietes grandiflora has that American habit known as walking onions. The flower stems arch up out away, and when they bow down and touch the ground a fan of leaves grows and a daughter plant grows where she can drop in at mum for dinner. They say – wild iris anticipates rain, and will bloom prophetically. In the picture from September 2007 this is a harmless little fan of leaves polka dotted in the centre of the Summer Gold bed at Paradise and Roses. Today the clump claims about a sixth of the bed, wedges its elbows into Mandela’s Gold, Courvoisier and Elizabeth of Glamis.  And I see granddaughters looking to leave home.  About two weeks ago we had an uncountable mass of blooms. Needs some water in summer, so happy to share with the roses. Dietes means two relatives – who are Moraea and Iris.

Dietes grandiflora 

Dietes grandiflora

This coming Sunday will be the First of Advent. Thanks to a Hungarian craft site who featured me as one of her set of Advent wreaths around the web last year – I have visitors coming to the blog from many Eastern European countries – I'm using StatCounter to teach me geography. This Advent my Hungarian blogger is focused on decorating the nursery for her unborn baby!

A dark Advent wreath

Last year we had silver leaves and white silk balls. This year I am drawn to darker colours. The platter beneath is a teal blue from my sister. One tuberous begonia leaf spreads it palm in support behind the candles. We pruned the two olives at the road entrance, and those leaves, turned up to show silver, are the arms extended in an embrace.    

Advent wreath

Agapanthus suffers so much from commonorgarden that they call it Lily of the Nile. Excuse me! De Nial is a river in Egypt, up, at the European end of Africa. We, where the Agapanthus is at home, are at the other Antarctic end of Africa. Blue African lily is a better name. Agapanthus forms an exclusive family all its own, found only in South Africa. The Latin name means Love and Flower, or Flower I’m Contented with (so long as I remember some summer watering!). Always something new out of Africa – blue lilies, Kingfisher blue Felicia daisies.

Advent wreath

And skipping away from indigenous, staying with the dark theme, I have red roses – Anna’s Red, Papa Meilland and Alec’s Red.

Advent wreath 2011

Thanks to our Swiss friends who once gave us the Hergiswil glass Advent wreath – I will simply replace as needed, during the three weeks that span four Advent Sundays.

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.) 

Spring Promise at Paradise and Roses

I love striped roses, inspired by Rosa mundi. Spring Promise is PINK. Chaim Soutine striped in shocking pink and white.

Chaim Soutine

My only single rose is Dainty Bess. (I would have liked Mermaid for Summer Gold, but that grows too big).

Dainty Bess

Of three miniature roses in the garden, only Lavender Jade has survived.

Lavender Jade

Battered by weather which has gone from snow on Ceres mountains 10 days ago to temperatures in the low thirties C. New Zealand once gave me a dozen flowers in April.

New Zealand

Growing tall and looking like a more intense version of Peace, is Sheila’s Perfume.

Sheila's Perfume

Help Kids stole my heart away, as the flowers are striped in red, pink, white and yellow – each bloom different as children are.

Helpkids

In this largest bed are seven roses. The last one is L’Aimant – still small but it has buds.

From Autumn Fire to Spring Promise. Of the four this one has suffered, because I chose an icecream bush as the focal shrub. Sub-tropical Euphorbia and what flourishes in Porterville, is a variegated Bougainvillea. 

My shade parasol is Dais cotonifolia, pompom tree, full of buds anticipating Christmas. This tree from Eastern South Africa would prefer some summer rain and is looking happier this year. The bark is tough, and is used as cord in Kwazulu-Natal. ‘Dais means a torch in Greek, and the genus got its name from the resemblance of the stalk and bracts holding the flowers to a torch about to be lit. The leaves resemble those of another genus Cotinus, hence the species name cotinifolia’. Dais is Thymelaeaceae but has leaves like smokebush. For info about South African plants I go to PlantZAfrica.

The Melianthus major waves its arms OVER the tree and flourishes its leafy umbrellas. Lopping limbs off as the flowers go to seed and there is no longer nectar for the sunbirds. Was surprised to see sunbirds busy in the blue sage, but I remember they like Salvia greggei with its fierce pink/red flowers. Since our sunbirds don’t migrate, I’m trying to make sure there is nectar for them year round.

Trimmed the fluffy grey trousers off the Artemisia afra, now we can see the third pair of arrow slits again.  

Spring Promise from the window,  Dais 'torch' buds waiting to be lit
Melianthus and Pelargonium, Spring Promise from the sundial

This bed was planted in September 2007. 2008. 2009. 2010. Autumn flush in May 2011.

Spring Promise at Paradise and Roses
out of the window, to the mountain
down the path, and again from between the windows

For Spring Promise I seek – blue. Glaucous foliage looks not real, not true. The flower that enchants me most is the Festuca glauca. I know grasses make flowers, but I didn’t expect BLUE flowers! They ripen to gold.

Festuca glauca in flower

The blue grey border is – Festuca glauca blue grass, Tulbaghia, Dianthus and thrift. Pink lavender. Pink Pelargonium. Shriek pink tiny foreign daisy – Argyranthemum. Against the far South facing wall I have planted cuttings of Pelargonium tomentosum, the shade lover with ethereal tiny white flowers. 

Tulbaghia with Festuca, Festuca Tulbaghia and Dianthus
Dianthus, pink lavender

Once I have closed the hole called Gardener’s Lesson Learnt Eventually, I will be happier with this bed.

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.) 

Cape mountain leopard on camera

The Ungardener returned to Driehoek in October, still hoping to help trap Spot, the Cape mountain leopard.

Driehoek dam

While Dr Quinton Martins of the Cape Leopard Trust has traps set, he needs help monitoring 24/7. That is where the Ungardener comes in, as a volunteer. Each trap, and each collar, transmits a radio signal. When (if) the trap is triggered, Jurg uses the satellite phone to call Quinton. If it is a leopard, a vet comes from Ceres to immobilise it for measuring and collaring.

At Driehoek with radio antenna

Trapping a wary wild animal, requires PATIENCE, and persistence. The baboons trigger the traps, which must be reset after they have released themselves. Since a few hikers, who can’t read, were caught – Cape Nature has agreed to close the Uilsgat trail until the end of November.

Sign on Uilsgat trail
with Dr Quinton Martins

In 2005 the Trust sponsored a trained Anatolian shepherd dog to safeguard Driehoek livestock.

Anatolian shepherd dog at Driehoek

Since I write these Cape mountain leopards posts blind, using his photos and his stories, he brought me flowers. There’s a reason why they call it fynbos. A huge diversity of tiny flowers. There’s a puff of wild rosemary cotton, some yellow bulbine, the faded reminder of a strawflower, tiny white spikes of Selago, apricot fading to red Lyperia or Manulea in the centre?

Fynbos flowers at Driehoek in October

Looking back down the path to Driehoek farm, winding past protea bushes carpeted with restios, bulbs in their season, always something in flower.

Looking back to the farm

Looking up into the mountains, where about 30 Cape mountain leopards live in the Cederberg. Only two of these precious animals have been killed by farmers here, since the Trust came into existence in 2004. Before it was 8 a year!

Looking up to Driehoek mountains

A second week of monitoring, but still, no leopard. He drove home over the Uitkyk Pass.  Uitkyk meaning lookout or view.

Uitkyk Pass

Year in the Wild has a photo of Doc Martins cradling a sedated Cape mountain leopard in his arms.

They were so close! There is a camera trap at the river crossing, and the elusive Spot was caught in the act of passing the trap. But not IN the trap! I don’t use photos we haven’t taken ourselves – but as Jurg said – this was on his watch. See the time stamp?

This photo is copyright to the Cape Leopard Trust.

Spot caught by the camera trap of the Cape Leopard Trust

If you too are interested in the survival of Cape mountain leopards there is a subscription only newsletter. Or support their work by Adopting a Spot.  Thank you!

Pictures by Jurg (and the Trust), 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.)

Autumn Fire at Paradise and Roses

Tea in Paradise with Summer Gold to my right, and to my left (I'm sinister) Autumn Fire. When we built the house I wanted a walled rose garden, face brick to match the house. The most visible of the four beds (when you look out the window, step off the verandah, or walk down the path into Paradise and Roses), I'm grateful that it is the one among the four that works best!

Looking out the window at Autumn Fire

This bed was planted in September 2007.  2008. 2009. 2010. Autumn flush in May 2011.

Autumn Fire at Paradise and Roses
End of October, then November from the verandah
Down the path to reach out

For Autumn Fire I seek – burgundy or chocolate foliage. I love the impact of a tree with dark leaves among the green. The curved wall, behind which we drive or walk from the road, throws shadow year road. That calls for a foreign deciduous tree as the parasol. Prunus nigra (Canada! plum) bowing down under its cherry sized fruit.

Along the curve I have planted shrubs and trees, making the illusion of a fourth corner. Diospyros whyteana is a favourite tree. No berries so ours must be male. The leaves are a deep green and glossy. In the ebony family with persimmon, ours is found as far as Ethiopia. Halleria lucida tree fuchsia bears its orange tubular flowers on old wood. A tree related to snapdragons and foxgloves, Nemesia and Diascia. Nectar for sunbirds, berries and insects for the other birds. 

Diospyros whyteana, Halleria lucida

In the shade of these three and the wall is Mackaya bella forest bell bush. The only plant in its genus, endemic to the summer rainfall side of South Africa. Christine's bloomed weeks ago. Also tucked in that shadiest corner is the tuberous begonia.

Mackaya bella

My extravagance here is the Japanese maple in a pot. I have a dark lavender, deadheaded since this picture was taken at the end of October.  Weight and heft from large dramatic leaves in a clump of Strelitzia, which has smuggled in an arum lily Zantedeschia.

Dark lavender, Prunus nigra
Japanese maple, Strelitzia regina

My smalls here are black Mondo grass battling the summer sun, I must move it, next to the chairs where it will get afternoon shade. Beneath the pillow of self sown poppy is an orange leaved Crassula and there is a Kalanchoe with brick orange flowers coming into bloom now.  

Paradise and Roses. I wanted a striped rose in each bed, but miniature Maverick has Left. Burning Sky with two tone petals must fulfil my need for striped petals.

Burning Sky on a sunny day
and an overcast day

Alec’s Red produced a few huge flowers at the end of October and is busy building the next set of buds.

Alec's Red

Duftwolke kept going, now she has Bunches of flowers.

Duftwolke

Karoo Rose has so many flowers, that Saturday’s rain bowed the wet bunches over. Because of the way nature arranges ‘florid bundle’ roses, so each has its designated place in the sun – one truss in a square vase is perfection.

Karoo Rose

And finally another rose with history. The French family which bred Peace at the end of World War Two. Deep red, velvety and fragrant, a Proper rose – I bring you Papa Meilland. For me another link to my father’s sundial.

Papa Meilland

For info about South African plants I go to PlantZAfrica.

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.)

Some corner of a foreign field

To families. Thanks for the memories!

My cousin asked the Commonwealth War Graves Commission where our grandfather’s grave was. When the Ungardener and I were crossing Europe in the old Land Rover, we went to visit his grave at the Bucquoy road cemetery. I read the entry in the register stored at the gate. His entire life, in a few lines. Nearby is Delville Wood where we walked quiet avenues of tall trees, and no birds sang. Remembrance Day. Poppy Day.

Poppies grow, between the crosses
(picture reposted)

My father was born in 1906. Between the two wars he took his newly minted engineering degree from a New Zealand with no prospect of work, to seek his fortune in London. Almost a hundred years later, my great-niece will follow in her great-grandfather’s footsteps. To the London where my mother, and grandmother were born. 

Nasturtiums, Cistercians? What's the difference, he says

Foreign also takes me to Gesine in Berlin’s Blogger-Bluten  and the original Carol at MayDreamsGardens Bloom-Day, which I choose to use as a record of this month’s foreign flowers in my garden. Usually roses, but as this is their month, they are getting their own posts. So, Not Roses. The nasturtiums, called Cistercians by the Ungardener. Orange day lilies and lemon yellow iris came with the garden. 

Day lily and iris

Thanks to Jack I know this cosmopolitan wildflower as hawkweed. Ten thousand microspecies says Wikipedia! A rosette of leaves, lots of flowers dancing on tall stems at knee height, buttery sunny petals with a picotee edge, wildlife friendly. I’m rather fond of my free spirited plant (not a weed this!)

Hawkweed

Our smelly old socks daisy  has been deadheaded hard and is turning to a second lighter flush. Delicate feathered leaves, the weird smell is in the flowers. Think of chrysanthemums. And the little herb feverfew (Tanacetum / Chrysanthemum / Pyrethrum parthenium). New Hampshire Garden Notes suggested Pyrethrum. Argyranthemum from the Canary Islands (the climate is right), Marguerite or Madeira daisy. A yellow one at Lona's Hocking Hills Garden. Or is it a Persian chrysanthemum Arash?   Susan in the Pink Hat at Ink and Penstemon also has a large white mysterious daisy?

Argyranthemum Madeira daisy?

Our apple trees have blossom. What we eat, is mostly foreign. Off the top of my head all I can think of local, is waterblommetjies and madumbis (‘wild’ potatoes)! Not just locally grown, but literally indigenous/native. 

Apple blossom

I wanted, an indigenous blue water lily. What I have, is foreign, pink. And that tiny pond weed is invading again. The lonely South African today is blue Plectranthus neochilus.

Water lily

This is a flower designed by a committee. Lots of bits that are attached, but don’t belong. Tuberous begonia is here for its glorious asymmetric leaves, a hand with fingers reaching wide. Tall coral flowers were a surprising bonus. One of my mother’s pot plants set free in a shady corner.

Begonia

Following the lead of the Prunus nigra which is laden with cherry sized fruit, the real plums are coming on slowly. So the colour wheel turns from red orange yellow, to white, thru deepening pinks to plum. Meeting at the crimson and scarlet boundary. A Red Cross.

Edible plum, Prunus nigra

Post title from Rupert Brooke’s poem The Soldier, written in 1914. He is buried in an olive grove on the island of Skyros in Greece.  

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.)