Be careful what you wish for

It may come true. We wanted a large space to make a garden. Our panhandle is a long driveway with a large square in which our house is roughly centred.

The Story of Elephant’s Eye

Chapter 5
Karoo Koppie and friends

Under the ash trees

Two ash trees thirty years old decided where the house was built. He wanted Ungardening Pond. I wanted formal walled Paradise and Roses.

Washing lines and white pelargoniums

Came the morning when I stood with a sinking heart looking across half a field ten metres wide and twenty-five metres across, between the house and the inherited apple trees. We had plans. A second line of fruit trees. A chequerboard of paving slabs - but he vetoed that. At our False Bay house we found … my chequerboard waiting.

Karoo Koppie foliage, colour and texture

What is a Karoo Koppie?

When I first wrote about our Karoo Koppie, a reader asked – but, what is it? Home to the aloe. There is the Nama Karoo a place of semi-desert, wide open spaces rolling on to an eternal horizon. Since it is a desperately dry place, they plan to frack!! Karoo violets were on my bucket list, that vibrant blue of gentians, and I almost trod on them! The Little Karoo, beyond our mountains, where the succulents are adapted to winter rain. We had an off-grid holiday in the Tankwa Karoo.

Karoo Koppie at Elephant's Eye

Karoo Koppie

Our next landscape feature was up a bit, using the builder’s rubble from our house to provide good drainage for succulents. We step into a different ‘climate and landscape’. Open and exposed to the sun all day long. In August 2008 we did the first planting. October 2009 we made it larger. A nectar haven for the sunbirds when the plakkies and the aloes are flowering in winter. Predominantly South African succulents – but I couldn’t resist the colour and structure of Moroccan Aeonium and Mexican Echevieria.

EELR Elephant's Eye Light Railway

EELR Elephant’s Eye Light Railway

His wish granted for a garden railway with a little Mamod steam train bought in London. I used Nandina to echo the apple trees.

Mediterranean Sun Circle

Mediterranean Sun Circle

We have no lawn and the eye needs somewhere open and quiet to rest in the garden. We moved our Mediterranean Sun Circle. First choice was too shady, and the beautiful ‘stone’ circle was hidden. It makes a logical break between the arid Karoo Koppie and the damp hollow of Apple Creek.

Folie de MMIX

Folie de MMIX

Our ‘house in the trees’ was built in 2009. He has replaced the glass in the clerestory window – foiling Chocolat who used the opening to reach his mezzanine gallery.

Evening Rays at our Karoo Koppie

Evening Rays

On the morning sun shadier round end the Karoo Koppie faces into one of our tall ash trees. For a change of pace, I planted formally, in long lines, radiating out, the low evening rays of the sun, but staying with the Karoo Koppie’s succulent theme. A logical division using the Plectranthus neochilus against the Blue Border.

It all began beneath two ash trees in 2006

Before in July 2008 looking from the ash trees to the washing lines
between the apple trees and the rain water tanks 

Chapter 4. Of Snow and Rain Gardening We moved in May 2007, and in June we had floods. The Ungardener rain gardened.
Chapter 6.  Sun kissed at Paradise and Roses My roses have South African companions.

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

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