Green house, grey water and wind turbines

by Diana Studer

- gardening for biodiversity

Is it a "green" house? Brownfield (in town) not destroying nature. Where the infrastructure is already available – water, electricity, phone/internet(!), sewerage. Face brick (to avoid painting). Slate floor, natural stone from Mazista. Solar powered hot water. The electric geyser, to supplement the solar panels in winter, is on a time switch. Our metal roof is powder coated. Insulation in the roof is green (literally) recycled plastic.

Hopefield Wind Farm

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.

Rain gardening

Once upon a time we walked down the panhandle, past the ash trees to the reed bed and the weaver’s nests. We were smitten.

Giant or Spanish reeds

The Story of Elephant’s Eye

Chapter 4

Rain Gardening against Winter Floods

Naming of parts at Elephant’s Eye

UPDATE: In November Ungardening Pond is circled with purple spires as I've solved the marginal planting problem.

We are in January looking thru the eyes of the Roman god Janus both towards and back.  Last week I looked towards and chose my first tree for the False Bay garden which waits for us. 

The Story of Elephant’s Eye

Chapter 1

Today I look back at Elephant's Eye. I choose Summer Gold at Paradise and Roses - adding a little bling to your ‘yellow border’. Since I love words and my garden, I am recalling Naming of Parts.

In December 2006 work begins on Pani's Falls

Wilderness camps with the Cape Leopard Trust

Drive away from our home in Porterville, North towards Clanwilliam and up into the Cederberg mountains, where endangered Cape leopards live. Since September last year Jurg has been volunteering with the Cape Leopard Trust. In January he went to help refresh the Toktokkie Camp before this year’s children arrived for their wilderness camps.

Klipbokberg on the road to Ceres

Today we have Naming of Parts

Anne Perry's quintet was written around the First World War. I have just finished the fourth book – At some disputed barricade. A poem we learnt at school was Henry Reed's 1942 'Naming of Parts'. I have always been fascinated by the fact that widgets and gizmos and thingamajigs do have precise and particular names, if that is what you work with.  

Dani is moving to the farm, but that farm needs a name! Like pub signs, as you drive across country, South African farms have intriguing names, that could and do tell a story. Just outside Porterville is a dairy farm, called Gelukwaarts. The waarts bit is obvious – forward  – This Way! For Geluk you need Dutch or German (and they got it from the English luck!). Happiness. Imagine driving along, heading for home, and turning where the sign says – This Way to Happiness!

Black Stork Island

On Ungardening Pond 4

In May we walked together in hopeful optimism round our pond. By June you can see winter rain falling, and filling the pond, but, to our mounting despair, you can also see a tideline on the beach. He looks at me sadly and says we keep topping up, it’s winter, can’t be evaporation. There must be a leak!

June, with an exposed tideline on the beach
and winter rain

Rain gardening

Gardening to deal with winter flash floods. June 2007, just after we moved in. Floods! We have heavy clay soil, and the swamp monster will get you! Can I have my foot back, please? (Catching up in September 2013)

July 2008. Floods, again. But now we have a buried drainage pipe to clear the driveway. We have gravel paved paths, and the flood waters recede quickly. 

Elephant’s Eye is three years old today

This post is for our Swiss friend Andrea, who asked for photos of all four corners. And for Clara who still hasn’t seen the ‘new’ house.

No, not the blogaversary, not yet. We slept in this house for the very first time, three years ago. Digital photos make it so easy to sort out year by year, with Picasa’s help for the collages. So we, and you, can see how a garden emerges from the builder’s blasted earth bomb-site.

This virtual garden on the blog, appears, frozen in time, in two dimensions. If you could walk with me, you would see the third dimension, around the corner, looking back, over here, and NO DON’T look that way. The fourth dimension, of time, and change, is the most important, year long time lapse photography in the collages.

Ash tree planters

In the very beginning, there were two ash trees. Our trees are about thirty years old. A good reason for us to chose This plot. We call them Dolf and Anna, for the gardeners who left us these trees, fruit trees, bulbs and Anna’s Red rose. Also lots of spinach, which just comes up, like that, of its own accord.

2006 

I have learnt my lesson in the meantime. I thought, trees, shade, I’ll plant a woodland garden. Clivia. Plectranthus. A hardy fern. We didn’t want to upset the trees by digging into their roots or banking soil up against the trunk. We built planters, away from the trunk.

Apple Creek and the Elephant’s Eye Light Railway

Once upon a time the Ungardener had a toy train. Somewhere along the way, as he grew up, his mother gave it away. As a child, I never had a teddy-bear. I inherited one from my sister. Grown up, I said to myself - stop whining - you want a teddy-bear - GET a teddy-bear. 

October 2008

Mediterranean Sun Circle

The Ungardener likes the African sun. Despite warnings from the dermatologist. So he wants somewhere to sit and lie in the sun. This bit of garden still needed developing. The wall faces North which makes it a sun trap. From there you look onto the Karoo Koppie with our succulents. And across to Ungardening Pond. A wide view across the full length and width of the garden, but without the mountain view. Started in September, while the garden was still green.