WEEKLY PIC: NOVEMBER WEEK 4

This is the view from my home. What justifies its  choice as the pic of the week is that after 120mm of rain (5 in) the last two days, it is the only shot I got from my non-waterproof camera. Jokes aside, as the colourful early summer settles into the lush green growth of high summer, the rain often dictates the nature of our activities: potting-on in the carport today, for instance. And the view from inside of rain on the water – now much browner than before – of  branches hanging heavy with moisture, of the bridge darkly wet and  the first hydrangeas ghostly in the gloom is a standard November week 3 image. And that after all is the purpose of this series.; a chronicle of a year in the garden with 52 pictures.

 

BLOWSY ROSES IN THE BEECH BORDERS

It is rose season at Sequoia Gardens, a time of extremes of joy and despair. It is not really a rose climate; it tends to be too damp when the roses are supposed to look their best. In addition this past season I’ve not always provided the necessary support with feeding and pruning (I don’t do any spraying anyway). But walking through the garden recently and looking at the scene below, I knew where the strength – and the future development – of my roses lay…

Fact: I will never be a neat gardener. Fact: my roses often need to fend for themselves. Fact: roses in an unneat garden having to fend for themselves are a disgrace. Fact: my roses often succeed in being superb despite all these facts! How and why? My best roses flop heavily onto other shrubs, or have a strong supporting cast when they aren’t capable of taking centre-stage. Many are once-flowering old-fashioned shrub roses. Many are tough as nails – what Ludwig, South Africa’s Mr Rose has coined Eco-Chic roses and marked with a red ladybird in his wonderful colour-catalogue. I must stop thinking along the lines of outdated rosebeds! (Except of course for Trudie’s Garden, where that is part of its charm, and where I do try to do the high maintenance thing.) I must accept that the Anniversary Garden is a 60% rose flop and fix it, not as a rose garden, but as a colour-themed garden with many roses. I must nurture the roses in mixed beds if (but only if) they are happy. And I must develop a large area where the old-fashioned roses can grow as huge as they like and flop over complimentary shrubs and be voluptuous and abandoned… the Rondel Garden is too small for most of the old-fashioned roses! And because of the editing nature of photography I can go SNAP! and make it look as though this has all already happened!

Already the Beech Borders display this philosophy rather well. Refine and expand will be the motto here – there is an area of some 30 by 70m next to this that I’ve been wondering about for years now…

It lies in the rectangle between the Standen Walk and the Beech Borders which you can see in this panorama…

At the bottom of the Beech Borders lies the Waterlily Pond…

And beyond that the New Dawn rose is spectacular for the first time this year….

Now let’s reverse back up the Beech Borders…

…until we are under the beech. The round pot contained Raubritter, the wonderful globular pink rose, to mark the intersection of the gardens. It died of neglect.  Down the bottom the magnificent tree fern is a bit of a bind because it narrows down the view of the pond. Ah well… count your blessings. It was there long before my garden, after all!

One of the tricks I wish to explore is the combination of red foliage with pink roses – in fact any foliage that compliments the blowsy badly behaved roses I adore. In my next post I will show you more in other parts of Sequoia Gardens!

 

WEEKLY PIC: NOVEMBER WEEK 3

Two days of misty weather, but little rain. Three weeks of trying to catch up with the real world – so my post on my blowsy roses gathers material but also dust. It is time for the weekly pic, so I stick my nose out the front door – literally – at 5.45am to take this shot. It is actually a pretty good subject, not as much of a compromise as it sounds. It shows the good and the bad of my gardening. Let’s start with the bad: too many ‘sticky’ textures, not enough big leaves or sculptural shapes, but it shows much clearer within the frame of a camera than on site; and a tendency to dotty planting rather than dramatic use of a few plants.

 

However it shows some of my favourite plants, and an admirable ‘white garden’ quality, although the Cottage Garden is better described as a garden where white  dominates. In the foreground are the bells on grassy wands of one of my all-time favourite plants: the white Angels’ Rods or Diarama; self-sown white Nicotiana elata abound; in the background Rosa ‘Penelope’, a wonderful repeat-flowering Hybrid Musk that strikes easily from cuttings, and standing out against the dark background, the flowers of Hydrangea serrata are beginning to show colour. One of the stone paths cuts through the composition. The Cottage Garden, small in scale, muddled in execution (by accident rather than design, but appropriate to its name!), is one of my more successful creations.

 

AHA! AN AWARD!

Deborah of Green Theatre http://kilbournegrove.wordpress.com/  has tagged me for an Honest Scrap Award.

Hmmm. What does that mean? Like most awards, there are strings attached. I must:

 A. Brag about the award. (I am not sure if that means, brag about me getting the award, or brag about the award itself, but consider it bragged.)

B. Link back to the person. (Done. Thanks, Deborah!)

C. Share 10 honest things about yourself. (Well I don’t share the dishonest things.)

D. Give the award to 7 more bloggers who inspire you. By the way, you should let them know that you have picked them, they are not mind readers you know! (So I better do that right away myself.)

The Honest Scrap award is perhaps a bit too much like some of those chain-mail emails one receives five times a day. But Blotanical is a community, and one which the better one gets to know the inhabitants, the more rooted you feel. (BAAAD pun, Jack) And so, for the many friends I’ve made on http://www.blotanical.com/  and for those who might want to explore gardening blogs further and for those who just want the dirt on me (OUCH, another), here goes…

My 7 awards:

1) Diana of Elephant’s Eye (http://elephantseyegarden.blogspot.com/  ) is a kindred spirit and a fellow South African, even if we live climates apart!

2) Fran and Saxon and team of Gardening Gone Wild run a macroblog and show us what blogging can become when it is focused and educational and moves beyond the social and self-indulgent (and believe me, I include myself!) and becomes a service to the community. AND it is a fun blog! (http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/  )

3) Ross achieves these qualities on his own and is my next choice. It’s good to know that one of the most worthwhile landscaping blogs I’ve found on the big wide web – hands-on, intelligent, a keen eye and a fine critic – belongs to a fellow South African. When I get to Durban I intend to meet up with Ross of Landscape Design. Meanwhile I find him at http://earthlandscapes.blogspot.com/

4) Charlotte, The Galloping Gardener, (http://thegallopinggardener.blogspot.com/  ) lives the voyeuristic life I would love to lead; not just in the UK, but across continents! Besides galloping, she also drums away at her keyboard and her camera shutter with more energy than is decent for one person – and along the way she promotes an international charity project!

5) Jean of Secrets of a Seed Scatterer (http://seedscatterer.blogspot.com/  ) first approached me with some cheeky no-nonsense advice about my masthead – so congratulate her if you like it! She seems to me the quintessential hands-on gardener. And I’ve just discovered that I’ve not yet faved her on www.blotanical.com ;( Better go fix that!

6) Tatyana of MySecretGarden (http://tanyasgarden.blogspot.com/  ) combines feminine warmth and beauty in equal measure and was one of the first to nurture and encourage me on Blotanical. In addition she knows her gardening and is a great photographer.

7) Rob Horace of Au coeur du jardin (http://ourfrenchgarden.blogspot.com/  ) seems to me to be on a somewhat similar mission to myself, loving to create beauty in a wonderful and slightly exotic setting. A visit to his blog puts anyone in a holiday mood, such is the romance of his piece of France…

And a bit about me:

1. I love the camera (and the blog) because it hides a multitude of gardening sins. Mostly I look at my garden and am overwhelmed by what needs to be done… When it looks good, I feel a charlatan for claiming it as MY garden, because it is nature that does most of the work. But then I believe that is the way a garden ought to develop anyway!

2. Besides nature, my staff must take much of the credit. I will be the first to admit that only in a third world country where labour is plentiful and therefore relatively inexpensive, can someone who is not seriously wealthy garden as I do. (In fact, because of the garden, I am seriously broke.)

3. One of my gardening gurus was Phineas Mogwale, foreman on the farm for nearly 25 years, who was steeped in the ways of gardening, who decided to push the lawns down to the water’s edge even as my dad was building his house, yet who if given the option would probably have grown vegetables and run cattle here rather than garden. RIP old man, and smile, I hope, on the gardens as they develop further.

4. My collection of gardening books, mostly bought second hand or on sale, covers almost 10m of bookshelf. Along the way I’ve also read almost everything about Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicholson, the creators of Sissinghurst, including their published letters and diaries. See my post at http://forums.mooseyscountrygarden.com/garden1877.html  for pictures I took at Long Barn, their first home and garden.

5. I was possibly the first person in South Africa to receive a company pension from a same-sex relationship. It is small, and has hardly increased in nearly16 years, but it still came as a huge surprise after Francois died of cancer. He was employed by the Performing Arts Council and they had negotiated groundbreaking conditions even before the New South Africa brought the most liberal and inclusive Constitution in the world.

6. I was allowed to move into the hospital and help nurse him during the last week of his life. That prepared me for nursing my mother who passed away last month. I have no doubt that when I come to take stock of my life, these two events will stand high on my list of positives.

7. A week before he died I dreamt one night in detail of the Rondel Garden, the first of the commemorative gardens on the farm, where his ashes are buried. A huge project, its 20m diameter circle has proved hopelessly too small in scale for the old fashioned roses I planted there, and it will be completely replanned during the following seasons. Sad, because we planned the planting together in hospital, poring over rose books.

8. More than a year later I spent 6 months in Europe in a campervan, mainly touring gardens in the UK and Scotland. I learnt a vast amount, took over 1500 slides (hey, that was a lot of expensive photography back then!) which I am currently scanning electronically (see point 4). I came back determined to (a) make gardening my career and (b) develop the gardens on Sequoia in a more structured way. I was aware that I must not plan to attempt too much. I have ignored my own advice and swing between joy and despair at the results.

9. It is now 11 years since I gave up life in Johannesburg to be permanently on Sequoia. Along the way I got side-tracked into 9 years of teaching English, 13 years after leaving school for good – or so I thought. In 2001 I was a charter member of the Haenertsburg Rotary Club, of which I am president this year. These two activities have brought me a rich and rewarding involvement in the community, but have not always benefited my garden. However recently a car-load of 20-somethings stopped by: an ex-pupil wanting to show his friends where they had come on class picnics during his schooldays.

10. There are more commemorative gardens coming: my own 50th (3 years overdue by now), as well as those for my brother (1 year) and my sister (coming up). Also there is a garden for my mother and my partner’s mother in the pipeline. Louis has put up with me patiently for 14 years. In fact he has been a saint, and it is only during the past 18 months that I have come to fully appreciate his loyalty and his love. Our separate lives move ever closer together…

 

WEEKLY PIC: NOVEMBER WEEK 2

I was so certain that the roses would feature this week. But I think a longer post on my blowsy, rather unconventional approach to roses is needed; besides which, none of this morning’s rose pics, the first I’ve taken this second week of November, jumped out at me and demanded to be used.

So instead I present: Papaver aculeatum, the South African Poppy. It fills me with wonder that this obviously-poppy poppy is the only poppy indigenous to  South Africa; is in fact the only poppy in the entire Southern Hemisphere.  It is rare but quite widely spread, and can be either a soft orange like our local strain, or salmon-pink. I consulted Mark Griffihs’ “The New Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary: Index of Garden Plants” which to my even greater surprise lists it as native to both Australia and South Africa.  How? When? I was quite prepared to believe that millenia ago a migrant bird brought a single seed from the North, and that developed into our poppy. But the same species in Australia? The only one there too? I must get an answer – is this possibly a mistake, or just another of the myriad questions nature dangles before us?

Our lovely display started as a single flower found wild on the farm. Over the years we have encouraged it in one spot, where it grows in the Lower Rosemary Border  amongst the unfurling leaves of the marvellously coloured Canna ‘Phaeson’ , sometimes incorrrectly called C. ‘Durban’ . I think this year I must conciously harvest as much seed as possible. This plant is a treasure!

 

JACARANDA SEASON

Last week I was in Johannesburg, 400km south of Sequoia Gardens, my hometown before I settled permanently on the farm. Johannesburg has been described as the biggest man-made forest in the world – until 20 years ago gardens in even less affluent suburbs were large, and the climate is the best in the world: not too hot in summer, nor too cold in winter,  little wind, summer storms that bring plenty of rain, few mosquitoes and other bugs… and early November it is at its most beautiful when the thousands of Jacaranda trees fill the streets and gardens.

The Bougainvilleas (Bougainvillea glabra) growing into Jacarandas (Jacaranda mimosifolia) are iconic in Johannesburg, in shades from brick red to dark purple, but this is, I believe, the best I’ve ever seen as a composition!

 The next photo I took the same day in Pretoria, which has called itself the Jacaranda City for years. It is from an area where the average temperature is a good 5 degrees warmer than Johannesburg, though only about 35 km away. There are three different climbers into the lilac Jacaranda; purple Bougainvillea (scarcely visible here), pink Zimbabwe creeper (Podranea ricasoliana) and salmon and orange Trumpet Vine (Bignonia radicans). In addition there is a white Brugmansia (Brugmansia candida) on the pavement and between it and the Jacaranda in the garden there is a red Australian Flame Tree ( Brachychiton Acerifolius). What a glorious mix of strong but harmonious colour, and on what a grand scale the composition is!

 

WEEKLY PIC: NOVEMBER WEEK 1

Besides being rose season, this is also frog season; living as close to the water as I do, the first thing anyone who phones at night says is “Just listen to those frogs!” The choir – from basso profundo to sopranino – can be quite overwhelming as they call the rain, which usually obligingly arrives within three days, no matter how unlikely it seems when the chorus starts. Then, when it comes, they chirrup their appreciation all day, odd sounds coming stereophonically from all around. Now when I sighted my favourite frog in one of my favourite roses, I knew I had found the subject for this week’s pic. Ladies and gentleman, I present: the Painted Reed Frog (Hyperolius marmoratus taeniatus  – I have that on pretty good authority) and the wonderful old Hybrid Musk rose ‘Penelope’! 

 

WEEKLY PIC: OCTOBER WEEK 5

End of October – rose season! As the roses flush, spring is superseded by early summer and – usually – by now the rains have started. As I write this there is the promise of a thunderstorm, but so far we have measured only 24mm this month, all less than 4mm in a day. That means the roses are happy, as they don’t like too much water except at their feet; and therefore Trudie’s Garden features this week.

It seems it is still a time for tributes, as death rears its head among the roses. Trudie’s Garden is a collection of 30 plus roses donated to me by a friend who felt she was growing too old to do justice to her roses. I planted them outside the living room window from where my mother could enjoy them as she grew older. When Trudie passed away late last autumn, I picked the last rose of the season, scented and red, and took it to her daughter.

Amongst Trudie’s roses, mostly HTs, mostly red, were several bushes of one of my mom’s favourite roses: a huge and beautifully scented  salmon orange rose called Harmonie. I’ve just checked it, and that is in fact the international name. The name is German, the rose raised by Kordes in 1981. I always thought it was a local name as that is also the Afrikaans spelling; an excellent name for a rose with as much presence as the famous Peace. However in our family it has always been known as the Dobbie Rose, as my father’s partner’s wife, Dobbie, gave the first one to my mother as a gift many years ago, and she was thrilled to see that there were several Dobbie Roses among those that came from Trudie.

Recently, as my father was trying to contact Dobbie to let her know of my mother’s decline, her daughter phoned with the news that Dobbie had passed away. In my mom’s last days, already barely speaking and in great discomfort, I picked a Dobbie Rose, the first rose of the new season in Trudie’s Garden, and brought it in to my mother. She took it and inhaled the scent deeply, smiled, and dropped the rose to her chest. It stood by her bed through her last days. Tomorrow I am taking my dad back to their home in Johannesburg. The fading Dobbie Rose will remain on the bookcase in the living room, a tribute to three women who loved roses.

 

A LOVE STORY

                    RIP   ESTA HOLLOWAY   5 JULY 1929 – 24 OCTOBER 2009

photos taken 18/9/09

Here is a little more: http://forums.mooseyscountrygarden.com/viewtopic.php?p=16067#16067

 

WEEKLY PIC: OCTOBER WEEK 4

I was going to share my roses this week, but there is time enough for that…

Rather, let’s consolidate on spring as a process, something I have shared in several posts over the past weeks. The greens have filled out and only a few trees are not yet in full leaf. The array of  fresh green shades dancing in the breeze and the light is amazing and uplifting. So here is a final chapter (?) on green, and more comment on the poppies to be seen in the foreground: blowsy tennis ball sized doubles and slighter singles.