26 September, 2012

The garden at Elephant’s Eye in September


In Paradise and Roses, there are rosebuds showing colour, but that garden is focused on Paradise. Autumn Fire and Spring Promise, the dark and the Pink, are the two beds which are enchantingly filled with flowers. Taken yesterday.

Paradise and Roses yesterday

Just 10 days ago I cut the path free ….

Paradise and Roses tidied 10 days ago

Diagonal view of Paradise and Roses as you step off the verandah. Dietes happily blooming between the last of the winter rain showers. After hard pruning, feeding, mulching, and cool weather, my roses are exploding into leaves with fat buds on Burning Sky. Chocolat between Summer Gold and Autumn Fire.

Paradise and Roses, Dietes wild iris
Burning Sky, Chocolat

The plum trees are having a good year, absolutely covered in blossom, now turning to leaves.

Edible plums
Bottom right Prunus nigra

Walking around Ungardening Pond you can see the karee trees reaching long graceful arms up – but – we need to retrieve our view of the Elephant’s Eye.

On Ungardening Pond

Foreign (plums, roses, smelly white daisy Argyranthemum, lavender and nasturtiums ‘Cistercians’), Wildflower Wednesday and Dozen for Diana. All together, as this September went to spring flowers in Nieuwoudtville, exploring False Bay dreams, and gardening. 

Veltheimia, Albuca, Babiana
Clivia
Melasphaerula,
vlei lily, Lachenalia, Freesia

Potted bulbs, daisies in all colours. Sitting in the garden, a flying ant landed on my butter yellow shirt. A lesson in minimalism and shedding excess baggage – she dropped her four wings, as if I were to unzip and cast aside a jacket – and walked away to a different life.

September brings daisies to my September garden
and Gail's WFW in Tennessee
rain daisies, Felicia, bietou
Dimorphotheca jucunda, Argyranthemum

Dimorphotheca jucunda, Gazania
 Gazania, Euryops, hawkweed

We drove along the False Bay coast. The mountain slopes down to the sandy shore covered in layers and patches of colour. Ticking off what grows in our Porterville garden – white arum lilies, yellow bietou daisy bushes, brown beach sage, pink pelargoniums, and on open patches there is a sea of white rain daisies, a haze of tiny Barbie pink vygies, carpets of yellow and orange daisies, with shrubby Searsia/Rhus bushes. From Mother Nature a colourful wildlife friendly garden, desiring the sandy soil and cool sea breezes, proof against the howling South Easter, and what balm to the human heart.

Pelargonium, garlic buchu, nasturtium
Strelitzia, Salvia, Buddleja, lavender
vygie, Euphorbia mauretanica, beach sage, Pelargonium
Melianthus,
hoopoe, jasmine, Erica baccans

In Dozen for Diana what lights our garden in September are the Seriously Purple daisies. Dimorphotheca jucunda (was Osteospermum). According to PlantZAfrica they come from the mountains on the Eastern side of South Africa, and survive frost in the Pretoria winter. Butterflies and beetles love them too. Their name jucunda means delightful/lovely.

A royal carpet wherever I’ve put the cuttings in. January’s blue sage has been cut back hard, and is again reaching for my shoulders. February’s witkaree tree is embracing the mountain view, tends to pollard when pruned. March’s spekboom fuels the visitor’s exclamation – your garden’s so green and lush! April’s Plectranthus neochilus bears its purple spires, an architectural homage to familiar lavender. May’s Very Pink pelargonium is blooming steadily on. June’s reeds remind me of the ‘essential to a wildlife garden’ pond. July’s Lachenalia rubida are a faded memory, but we have other Lachenalia, Freesia alba and Albuca in the pots. August’s pig’s ears, leaves and flowers remain one of my immediate ‘must go with me’ choices. My first nine choices in Dozen for Diana this year are deliberately indigenous/native – for Gail at clayandlimestone's Wildflower Wednesday.

Nine in Dozen for Diana

Joining my Dozen for Diana
Laura at patiopatch in London brings Astilbe plumes of pink with 'toothed, ferny foliage', and ‘Moonlight’ a Japanese climbing hydrangea with heart-shaped leaves.
Donna of gardenseyeview upstate NY reminds me of milkweed Asclepias. First I admired the seedheads by the roadside, then I discovered African Monarch butterflies.
- circle back to Christine of thegardeningblog in Cape Town. Tried and tested - lavender and Gaura 'I will plant in any garden I own … even in pots on a balcony if that is all I have.' Nandina 'I am delighted every season.'
- spin the globe back to the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania and Pam's English Cottage Garden where she grows zinnias in tubs and in her raised vegetable beds. Grown from seed each year, she tells us.  

Winter has not left us yet
the new Indian Summer bed

As September draws to a close, we still remember winter. Shall we have the last fire this evening? 

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.)

45 comments:

  1. Such beautiful flower pictures. Enjoy that you're having spring and all the blooming ahead. It's the best time of the year.

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  2. Hi Diana, everything is spectacular in your part of the world, colorful and blooming well. But my favorite among all those posted here is that variety of nasturtium with the patches on the petals.

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  3. Happy Spring to you! Your glorious photos are indeed a balm to my heart. Spring is the most glorious of seasons. We are entering autumn and then will come the dull gray browns of winter. Already I am imagining spring. I love the colors of your Paradise and Roses.

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    1. We will have the embattled not long for this world garden thru pushing 40C summer months ...

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  4. It's still a little surreal to see new blossoms, and beginnings in your garden when we are preparing to leave ours for the winter. Lovely, delightful, and full of colors, but just a tad unbelievable in a "is that for real" way.

    Everything you have shown us looks so fresh and new, ours is tattered...

    Could you imagine living this life, I have friends who live in Wellington BC, on Vancouver Island, and Wellington New Zealand. They only spend the summer months in each country, it's always summer in their world.

    That's what I feel like when I get to see your blog, perpetual summer...

    Jen @ Muddy Boot Dreams

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    1. Our human swallows spend their other summer in Britain or Germany.

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  5. I always enter an oasis of calm and tranquility when I visit your blog.
    Jane x

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  6. Such a lot of very beautiful flowers in your garden. So many that would need a heated greenhouse to survive. While you are considering the last fire of the year, I am thinking about lighting my first, but not quite yet. We have a sirocco, a hot wind from the south that will probably bring rain (I hope). Christina

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    1. We get a hot berg (mountain) wind, which brings us rain.

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  7. How lovely to see your garden so full of life, when mine is starting to lie down and sleep.

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  8. you have such a beautifull garden !!!!it's Autumn over here, so we have to say goodbye to all the flowers now with pain in our hearts....

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  9. Oh, my! It really does look like Paradise. So much blooming - it is all gorgeous. Loved your little story about the ant. What a fun way to look at it - walking into a new life!

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  10. Your list of plants makes my mind whirl because I have no idea what most of them are, no reference point. I think I need a visit to South Africa so I can learn what grows where.

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    1. South Africa contributes hugely to horticulture's commonorgarden ...

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  11. Such a lot of fabulous flowers to welcome your spring. We still have lots of flowers still blooming but the weather is getting cooler day by day and the garden is winding down. Lots of your flowers are grown as conservatory plants here or annuals in the garden so we are able to enjoy them even if it is for a short time.

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  12. Such beauty!
    Like Paradise!
    Have a wonderful day!
    Lea
    Lea's Menagerie

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  13. Your garden is looking Spring-a-licious!! Beautiful Diana!

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  14. Spring in your area of the world is absolutely breathtaking. Thank you for sharing your garden with us. It is truly lovely.

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  15. AH! Whether it signals the beginning or the end of the rainy season, spring is always lovely!

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  16. Oh my goodness, your garden is enchanting in springtime! I'm imagining myself grabbing a book, sitting in the sweet chair, and sipping a cup of tea. I'm hoping to do a "plant of the month" this weekend. Not sure if it will make it for September, but hopefully for October. Happy spring to you!

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    1. when I see your plant of the month up - I'll add it here, or make it first on the October list?

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    2. I posted today, with a link to you. Whichever month works for you. Thanks, again, for hosting!

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    3. Sorry, I forgot to include the link: http://bit.ly/SwhJYl. Thanks

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    4. We'll make yours the First of October, as most of my regular readers have already been and gone and wented.

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  17. Diana I can not get voer how many blooms are showing in your early spring garden...those purple daisies would never like my early spring garden...I love those daisies and make sure I have a few in pots all summer....I can see why you stayed away from blogging...your garden is a paradise especially the pond! Glad you have this meme and happy to link in...thanks for the link and I am already planning my 12 for 2013 :)

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    1. I'm torn between a list for False Bay, or the named parts of our garden.

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  18. how rejuvenating your garden is to Autumn eyes. Fat buds on roses and not a greenfly in sight? The little wooden sculpture by the pond has me captivated.Loved your description of the striptease ant and drive along False Bay coast ticking off the natives at EE. Dimorphotheca jucunda is a wowser of colour but why/how/when the name change?

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    1. Aphids? Oh yes, but we are waiting on the ladybirds, while the white eye birds work! The kingfisher - bird with fish - is naive metalwork, seen all over South Africa.

      Osteospermum to Dimorphotheca? http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantcd/dimorphjuc.htm was written in 2005. I think it has to do with taxonomy using DNA to sort out family relationships.

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  19. Hi, Diana. So nice to see spring flowers while we are moving into autumn. I was wondering about the temperature over there today, so I checked your sidebar. It says Maximum 15 (30) C. I am a bit confused, can you explain? I hope I didn’t ask this before :-\

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    1. Not at all, that even confuses my husband. In brackets I keep a running maximum, or minimum, for the month. The unbracketed temperature is yesterday's.

      That 30C was back on the 16th. And the 04C was on the 3rd.

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  20. The seasons has changed a lot quicker and more suddenly this year as in the past. Its a lot warmer (or so it feels) than normaly this time of year and after all the rain we've had the wild flowers are beautiful. My garden is still shouting out for some attention but now that Tourism Month is over I should have more weekend time to do something.

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  21. I love your description of the flying ant. And the pond is lovely.

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  22. Love your spring garden. I am joining you, Diana, in my latest posting. P. x

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  23. Maybe my gardens will look that lush ... someday, when they "grow up"?!

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    1. oh beware, they grow up so quickly, just like your kids ;~))

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  24. I wish I could have a fireplace so I could have a real fire. I think I'd like paradise in my garden too.

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  25. paradise - enclosed garden - a wall around it. You have that, Lucy.

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  26. While you are contemplating your last fire, just last evening we had our first one. It is decidedly damp and cool here now. Paradise and roses looks so beautiful right now, brimming with blooms and greenery. Amazing how quickly it all grows. I wonder, do you use landscaping cloth underneath your gravel paths? I'm contemplating similar gravel in the future but have not figured out just how to do it other than the use of landscaping fabric.

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    1. Sore point! We had a heated discussion - I hate landscape cloth, made of fossil fuel, looks ugly when it's exposed. He laid a few sections - looks UGLY and the weeds grow thru, underneath AND on top. In fact little seedlings pop up in the gravel - I have my eye on some (hopefully pink) lavender in the rose garden. Makes a wonderful plant nursery in our climate! Best advice I can offer, is to keep on top of the weeding - we've sort of caught up now.

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  27. Diana you have a mast of beautiful flowers in your garden, I am though particularly taken with ungardening pond it is so naturally beautiful though I imagine it's an edited natural, Frances

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    1. that is a great compliment to the Ungardener's work. Lined with concrete, and we battle to get the planting right.

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  28. Someone said this earlier, but it's a treat to see your garden bursting forth in all it's Spring beauty as we start to put ours to bed! The cat slumbering on the wood pile is delightful

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  29. Ah spring! I can't help but feel the optimism. I recognize Melianthus from my own garden this past spring. What a terrific flower it has!

    Wishing you abundant plums to go with the wealth of plum blossoms.

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  30. I love your Paradise and Roses garden.

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  31. The clarity of the light and the brightness of the colour really strike me. Here it is misty and green and grey! Your photos made me have a sudden longing for light and colour. I must control myself. After all it's only October and the very beginning of autumn. There is a lot of greyness still to come. Perhaps I will have to come to your blog for my colour fix.

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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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