January garden walk 2012

Last January I walked you round our garden, aiming at the wide view for Nell Jean. How large is our garden? The Ungardener’s photo essay, from the roof. We cheat twice, borrowed scenery of trees and the distant mountain, and the longest line in your garden is the diagonal.

Driveway from olives to roses

Pink Pride of India with its bark
Australian brush cherry with its bee

     

Down the gravel driveway past the Australian brush cherry, busy with bees. Pride of India Lagerstroemia, across the pond, crepe myrtle. The sunny olives include some strugglers. Then the curved wall to Pushed out of Paradise and the OTT Perfume Passion rose.

Around the kitchen
Elephant's Eye Light Railway

Apples, figs and plums

Come thru the back gate. Figs, plum, and apples. The inherited fruit trees, which need serious pruning and rescuing from death by Kikuyu (grass runners!) Apple Creek should be cleared once a year. At Elephant’s Eye Light Railway the garden is teaching us. Bronze fennel and hawkweed have seeded themselves happily. Spekboom Portulacaria afra grows with such enthusiasm I spread bits around. Despite the deceased pennyroyal, the impression is still, lush and green.

Karoo Koppie with aloes and succulents

The afternoon sun side of the Karoo Koppie, needs to imitate a stone outcrop. Again the garden teaches me about microclimate – the embattled west-facing side, and the meshed together east-facing side. My source for tough succulent cuttings. This pot stands against the hot north-facing wall of Paradise and Roses.

Around the ash trees
with Strelitzia nicolai and Clivia

The bed outside our bedroom window- where my optimistic fynbos, died, slowly, one plant at a time. The ash planters – even the Clivia battles – not a shade bed, it catches the hot afternoon breeze. The strip behind the ash planters has a few young trees. The dry difficult stretch between the pond and the ash trees, which suffers from the very worst blast of summer sun. My beloved Dusty Millers are due to be harvested for lots of cuttings, and the woody grandfathers removed.

Water-lily, bronze fennel
Dianthus and nasturtiums

My January foreign flowers. Pink garden hybrid waterlily. Mustardy yellow umbrellas on the bronze fennel, promising more seedlings. A Dianthus and the last of the frazzled nasturtiums AKA Cistercians.

Looking across Ungardening Pond from the jetty
Young trees growing up, bridge over Plum Creek, looking at Rest and be Thankful

From the ash trees, past Rest and Be Thankful, on Ungardening Pond, across Plum Creek. The rooted cuttings and tree seedlings which came with us from the first garden, now conceal the concrete wall. Trees, in fact.

Looking east to the mountain, north to Clanwilliam
south to Cape Town, west to the sunset

Papa Meilland, Tropical Sunset bud, Sheila's Perfume, Chaim Soutine
Tropical Sunset
Lavender Jade, Elizabeth of Glamis, Perfume Passion bud

Bits of Paradise and Roses need rethinking, especially the pink Spring Promise bed. This winter I will hard prune the rose bushes, after lightly grooming last winter. Looking down each of the four paths in turn. We have Papa Meilland, Chaim Soutine, Perfume Passion and Tropical Sunset in flower now.

Half full to the pond, half empty to It's NOT A Garden
To the distant mountains, shady verandah

I walk the garden in two minds. Reminding myself that we started with a flat square. Inherited the 2 thirty year old mountain ash trees, fruit trees, a few flowering shrubs. The glass half empty sees the pruning and replanting. The glass half full, sits on the shady verandah, with a cup of tea, and a good book, always birds chatting. Rest and Be Thankful! 

Pictures and words by Diana of  Elephant's Eye 

- wildlife gardening in Porterville, near Cape Town in South Africa

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