August daisy chain walk

It is a month since you walked around my garden. Those white daisies which have just begun to open, are Dimorphotheca pluvialis (hear the rain?) Rain daisies. My mother, born in London, grew up in Cornwall, waits eagerly each year for her favourite wildflower on the slopes of Signal Hill, behind the city of Cape Town.

Today just one of my stars is not an Asteraceae. (We used to call them Compositae, with ray florets for the OTT, and Fibonacci spirals in the heart of the sunflower)

Down the gravel driveway, the middelmannetjie, nature grows green. Past huge clumps of Dusty Miller Miller. Here I once found my summer-snowflake. And those miles of purple Dimorphotheca jucunda had to find a home somewhere. At the front door the bietou is only just starting to make berries, still luminous green, but they will turn black = tickberry. Edible berries, the birds planted this one. Felicia the kingfisher daisy is beginning to flower.

Beneath the plums a riot of green, that needs weeding if we want fruit again this year. Last Monday I pruned all the roses, so the rose garden is looking sad. Not so very sad for we have Dimorphotheca in white and purple and yellow and pink. And a small shocking pink marguerite is covered in flowers. Because I only prune lightly, we have still/again rose flowers too.

Looking across to Rest and Be Thankful, and determinedly ignoring the ‘pond’ which is being drained, again, it still leaks. Gazania, the Pomp and Circumstance of daisies. Follow the Woodland Walk with pink Dimorphotheca and the grey leaves of Arctotis, no flowers yet.

And this link of the daisy chain, is a true daisy tree. Brachylaena discolor, silver oak. A small tree, with the felted silvery leaves I love, which are so often found in the daisy family. We loved this in the Camps Bay garden, as the leaves are green above, silver below, dancing in the almost constant south-easter.

Euryops varies from the tiny virgineus, with delicately incised fern like leaves, but on a huge bush covered with flowers. To the large pectinatus, like a common marguerite, still with feathered leaves, but grey again.

This common or garden white marguerite started life as a cutting from my mother’s retirement village. September 2008 it was still a toddler, but a year later it was easily as high as the gardener’s hunched back – and a worthy companion to our friend’s Villingen-Schweningen national costume.

So we walk under the ash trees, glance at the bulbs, but the freesias are still in bud. There are a few Chasmanthe in yellow and orange just starting. My purple and blue border is full of Dimorphotheca, needs some more ... Fynbos border needs a lot of change, but we do have these ivory yellow daisies. Beneath the apples more purple amongst the fallen yellow leaves, and the compost heaps, where one day, we will have raised beds for vegetables. And the last is a gift at the Elephant’s Eye Light Railway. Fine silver needles and MINUTE yellow paintbrushes.   


PS The Dusty Miller and the margeurites are the only ones NOT indigenous/native to South Africa O═════<() ♪ ♫ ♪

Pictures by Jurg and Diana, words by Diana of Elephant's Eye