Wildflower Wednesday in September

I was early for Gail's Wildflower-Wednesday. Last week the flowers were foreign, today they are Proudly South African. Perhaps the spirit of WFW is more about the wildflowers that would grow in my garden, if nature decided. Yellow Oxalis. White rain daisies on otherwise bare earth. In the damp hollows Melianthus and arum lilies. Where the winter rain leaves a few inches of standing water, vlei lilies.

Most of my bulbs were grown from seed. Fairy bells of Melasphaerula. White Babiana inherited from the previous gardener. Vlei lilies, seed didn’t work, so I bought bulbs with delight, when I found them. Arum lily snuck in with a Strelitzia. Freesia alba once from seed, now self-sown. Dietes some inherited, some from seed, some as bulbs – but somehow, they are all the same species.

Melasphaerula, Babiana, vlei lily
arum, Freesia alba, Dietes

Bloom day – not from around here

For Gesine in Berlin – I collect the foreign, exotic, commonorgarden. 

The starring role in the garden now, is a rowing-boat sized white daisy bush. I know where it comes from; the gardener at my mother’s retirement village was ripping out wheelbarrows of the stuff. New gardener’s eyes light up, and I brought a bit home. It sulks in summer – does an Estherism – not sure if it wants to go on growing. So I put it on life support, water steadily thru the summer, feed a little in desperation. Once the rain came, I turned away for a moment – and the blooming thing is as wide and high as I am tall. Green fernish feathered leaves. Large white daisies on long stems, ideal for picking. But only once, the flowers smell evil. Anyone know what it is? A Shasta daisy? I know, despite the huge variety of South African daisies, it isn’t one of ours.

Nameless white daisy

To Driehoek in search of leopards

Since we moved to Porterville the Ungardener has hoped that one day, hiking up in the Groot Winterhoek Wilderness Area, we would see Cape leopards. In the newsletter from the Cape Leopard Trust they recently asked for volunteers. He spent a week at Driehoek in the Cederberg, which flow on from our Groot Winterhoek mountains.

Mountain stream looking across to the Koerasieberg
 at Driehoek in the Cederberg

Leopards and other predators are a problem for stock farmers. They were hunted and trapped. At Driehoek is an Anatolian shepherd dog. Himself was dozing in his chair, when something leapt on his stomach. He woke up thinking leopard!