August Wildflower Wednesday looks to spring

A Swartland garden in August

When I pruned the roses, there were four flowers I left, to be cut down when the flowers faded. One was this Great North. Now I watch and wait, as the new season’s buds plump up and the fresh red leaves unfurl.

Great North

Among the few exotic non-South Africans in my garden, with the roses and nasturtiums, is Prunus nigra, Canadian plum, unfurling its first petals today. As a very early welcome to spring, with our neighbour’s peach trees.

Great North, Chaim Soutine
nasturtiums

What follow are South African flowers all the way. South African wildflowers planted in my garden. Some from the wrong summer rainfall side of the country – those sulk and whine in summer, but now they are dancing for joy. Where I let be, I have a thick carpet of limey yellow Oxalis pes-capreae. My pots of Ifafa lilies are dense with flowers. The planters around the ash trees and the patch near the sun bed have humungous fans of Chasmanthe leaves, with lots of the chosen buttery yellow flowers, and a few orange intruders. Below the bridge at Plum Creek pots of vlei lilies delight me.

Oxalis pes-capreae, vlei lilies, Chasmanthe in yellow
Chasmanthe in orange, Ifafa lilies

A blue Felicia daisy keeps company with Dimorphotheca jucunda in white, purple and yellow.

Yellow, white and purple Dimorphotheca jucunda
Blue Felicia 

Pelargoniums reward me year round with a few shapely fragrant leaves for the tiniest posy, a daunting supply of cuttings when it’s not summer, and an exuberant display of colour when they are on a roll.

Pelargoniums

Slowing down and taking time to observe the developing flowers on the Karoo Koppie. Aloe speciosa produces tall flames of tomato red buds, which ripen to a startling ivory. For the sunbirds and weavers the next course of nectar is served.

Aloe speciosa

Among the yellow succulents are the lemon yellow Bulbine (which has recovered from being strimmed as ‘grass’). The deep purple leaves for which I rescued the Aeonium (African, but not SOUTH African) from a neighbour’s heap of garden waste – have exploded into a fat mustard yellow plume of flowers. NOT my choice. Aloe marlothii has a burgundy stalk for its flowers. Sharp yellow buds opening to red.

Left Aeonium and Bulbine
Right Aloe marlothii

We have strandsalie beach sage in burnt orange, white jasmine and garlic buchu, red Tecoma, mauve Scabiosa. Burgundy buds on Melianthus major which have since opened to the satisfaction of hungry weavers and sunbirds.

Strandsalie, jasmine, garlic buchu
Melianthus major, Tecoma
Scabiosa

As I sit in Paradise and Roses enjoying a late breakfast in the sun, I must be wary of being in the flight path of the weavers. Heading for nectar, or losing a bit of grubby sheep’s wool – just missed my bowl of muesli! Looking at the planters under the ash tree from three sides showing those sheaves of Chasmanthe leaves.

Looking from Paradise and Roses to Elephant's Eye mountain
Planters around the ash trees

I’m joining Wildflower Wednesday with Gail at Clay and Limestone in Tennessee.

Pictures by Diana and Jurg,

text by Diana Studer

AKA 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)