IS THAT AUTUMN ON THE AIR?

It was only on Sunday afternoon that I got to taking the dogs on a long exploratory walk. The mission: to determine what advances autumn had made during the month I was away. Already, on waking on Friday morning, I was surprised at how cool it was; especially after braving 36 degrees of heat in Cape Town only days before.

I maintain that the first subtle signs of changes in leaf colour happen by mid Feb, by mid March autumn gets going and mid April to mid May it is at its peak. So I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that the above sights greeted me on 17 March: a birch in full autumn glory!

It was not the only example of Look at Me Now! Here a dogwood struts its stuff as only a dogwood can. I think it is Cornus sanguinea, but I’ve always had my doubts about these small shrubby trees which I grew from seed I imported nearly 20 years ago. As it has never flowered for me, identification is difficult.

The beautiful little pagoda-like buds identify Cornus florida, as do the bright colour of early leaves against the still fresh green of others.

Quieter, but lovely, are two trees we bought together as Acer rubra; I have no reason to doubt this, except that they lack the autumn drama and staying power they are known for in other parts of the world. In addition the one tends to yellow rather than red autumn colour. They are planted meters apart.

Oh (and I won’t say this too often) – one can see we’ve had a harsh summer with several hail storms and plenty of wind. Or is it just that the battered leaves are the first to give up on life?

I’m darned if I know what these lovely leaves belong to – a viburnum? It is one of a mix of seed-raised plants in what I call my hedgerow. Bit of thinking and research needed here…

We are back a little beyond where the very first photo was taken. One of my most interesting trees grows here, and soon I will again try cuttings for my friend Jo… It is a plane tree, but instead of turning yellow its leaves turn red. I found it amongst hundreds of other quite normal planes at a wholesale nursery at about this time of year. Last summer it took a bit of a knock when a huge old pine fell and caught some of its branches, but it has thrived this past summer…

It is one of the first trees to show definite colour change in mid Feb; here it is in mid March and it has staying power till mid May – longer than any other tree!

There are other pics from this walk, and subsequent ones. More summery, less autumnal. But this pic from the end of the walk, warm light reflected after sunset from a bank of clouds to the south-east, is a good place to end off for now.

 

RECENT ODDS & ENDS

Two weeks after the Big Rains ended, it is still squelchy on the bottom road next to the dam; this pic, taken after a  few days of sun, shows why. After really heavy rains there are little fountains which surface near the bottom of the valley and run down the road to join the emergency overflow of the Makou Dam. What you see in the road ruts is RUNNING water!

We too have our indigenous gunnera, although not nearly as impressive as some of  its cousins. Gunnera perpensa is commonly known as the river pumpkin, a very apt name!

The gunneras I photographed are in the low ground near a streamlet, where Taubie stands in the far distance. In the foreground we have a classic garden situation: the perfection that precedes chaos. It is a question of time now before the Vitis vinifera  – Autumn Vine – growing into an old tree stump and indigenous Blinkblaar pulls the whole lot crashing down. I do so hope we will still get to see this sight come autumn!

Lastly a view of the pots at the front door, catching the light just right as we returned from a recent walk. I have a stack of pics to write about when I find the time; my cousin’s wedding here in October (lovely shots from a creative pro photographer!) and my weekend-past photography course at Kurisa Moya, the magnificent Nature Lodge belonging to friends in the next valley. Here meanwhile is a teaser – a photostitch of their entrance overlooking the rugged and much drier Kudu Kloof – click to enlarge it!

 

308 NOT OUT

308mm and still raining. That is over a foot fallen since Sunday evening, 6 days ago. 154mm of that within 24 hours. The really scary thing is that, starting this afternoon and going through to midday on Monday, the forecast indicated about 50% more rain than for the past week. That means potentially over 300mm again. But very little fell today and I see tomorrow is downgraded. Good. We’ve had enough.

The result is MOSS. On today’s walk, brollie in hand, everything was green and mossy. I left the good camera behind for fear of being caught in a downpour, so these were snapped with my phone – and in poor light in the late afternoon.

This was the moment that started it all: filtered afternoon light through a tulip tree. And then of course once the first photo is taken, the phone remains in photo mode…

The dogs loved the walk – in fact, insisted on it. and I love a walk in the wet, so the wellies went on, and off we set.

The dark blue hydrangeas are slow this year. The cold got to them, and they definitely took more of a battering than the paler colours. On many hydrangeas the first flowers are only appearing now.

Even the paved cross at the entrance fountain pot has a green sheen. Now we hope the heavy rain stays away. Besides anything else the two bridges on the main road are being rebuilt as part of the upgrade of our local arterial. It is a serious feat of engineering and management rebuilding a busy mountain road on itself, and we have a stop/go system. Luckily on both bridges the first half of the new bridge was commissioned before Christmas, and the second half has not yet been started. The floodwaters were awesome, and a lot of damage might have been done to fledgling construction!

PS: As I post this it is 8:30pm and the rain is increasing steadily…

PPS: Sunday morning. We measured 101mm overnight.

PPPS: Monday morning. A further 66mm measured this morning. Over a week and a few hours 475mm  (19 inches) fell. Luckily the big rain is now over; enough is enough!

In 2000  a record summer ended with a tropical cyclone which deposited 625mm in 36 hours on our valley – for the first three months of 2000 we AVERAGED 21.8mm per DAY. That’s almost an inch of rain per day for 3 months; a record we will hopefully never come near equalling again!

 

OF BUTTERFLIES,BRIGHTNESS AND A ROSE

Mid-summer is when the butterfly migration takes place. I posted on it some years back over here. When I went looking for my Monty dog one recent evening, I photographed them all asleep in the grasses, where they looked like flowers. (Monty not only visits anyone who is a guest in the valley, especially if there are children present – he also all but disappears for days at a time when the neighbours’ cross-German Shepherds are on heat… as they were again of late.)

The snapshot taken with my phone which I showed in the previous post really got me obsessed about the view back across the garden, with its layers of stacked planting, and I took several more photos with my DSLR. That in turn has got me thinking about upgrading my blog theme to show bigger photographs. But as my current theme is discontinued, I dare not do anything in haste, as I won’t be able to return to the current format. So watch this space… perhaps come Feb there will be a change…

Here meanwhile are a few details. Clicking on the pics of course shows them full size, or you could increase your screen view to around 125% so that the blog fills the full screen width.

Lastly I want to share a home-grown rose which has featured before, and impressed me. Now it has wowed me. A fresh shoot, grown since it was planted out last summer, has flowered, and the way in which the flowers on it are carried is most unusual. I  might just have a second worthwhile rose of my own breeding here! (‘Cascade’ being the first; you can read more about it in these posts.)

The flowers are quite large, semi-double, frilly, lightly scented, and of a very pleasing pink with a touch of salmon, and lighter towards the centre.

The last shot shows them with the Watsonias in the adjacent bed beneath the guest room window; I have always thought of them as being salmon-coloured, rather than pink…

 

 

HOME

By the time I publish this I will have been home a week – but there hasn’t been much time for my blog, or even for photography. So this will be a rather random photo-essay, impressions after two weeks away. The continuation of my story about my dad and Sequoia will have to wait. It needs time to prepare. But since we ended with the arrival of The Plett, let us start off there today.

There was a rather similar angle of The Plett as it arrived. Last year I added the 2nd roof and pergola and expanded on the gardening around The Plett. It is looking lovely, as the following photos (almost) show.

Creepers are making their way up the pillars and the paved area is surrounded by lush shrubs and perennials.

Privacy between The Plett and the big house improves every week and this garden area is fast becoming THE place to explore. This path is a reminder of the route The Plett followed to get here.

In addition there is plenty of scope for cuttings of new perennials from here… I wander down to inspect other parts of the garden. The big lawn is looking neat and finished, although not one plant from the past-their-sell-by-date seed packs we planted in the straightened lower edge of the top bed germinated. Good. Room for perennials then!

The pale orange dahlias that were planted too late last summer have recovered fully and make a strong statement. My plan is to document and collect from the vast variety of old dahlias around the village and neighbouring gardens that have survived since the heyday of the dahlia half a century ago…

This one (bought new though) will start the collection. One thing I did learn – not that one doesn’t know this of dahlias: beware which colours you plant where!

The magenta-purple dahlia on the right is all wrong! Luckily it is also of very short stature; it will be moved. This soft orange is ideal. We have pure yellow pompoms (although there is already rather too much pure yellow around) and clear reds of an orange rather than purple shade will work here; also the many russets growing around my cousin’s staff house, survivors from the terraced gardens next door… One thing I learnt late last summer: dahlias can be moved when not quite dormant and still survive, and that is what I plan to do later in the summer!

Before moving on I admire my favourite plant combination in the whole garden, seen in the background of the last dahlia pic. It gives me pleasure for at least ten months of the year! Then I turn to the Upper Rosemary Border.

It is looking lush and richly textured. Not for the first time my mind wonders to the impossibility of achieving such richness in time for the Spring Festival when much in my garden has yet to awake…

This is Mozart, a Hybrid Musk rose much like Ballerina (and my own Cascade Rose)  but larger and more inclined to sprawl. Each year it has looked better, spilling over other plants in this border.

And here, finally, is a good shot of the cardinal red of Cardinal Hume which grows close by in this border. Below – a more general shot again of the varied plants in the Upper Rosemary Border.

And yes – if the plant dead centre looks suspiciously like a weed – it is! One of my favourite weeds. With great anticipation I turn to investigate the Lower Rosemary Border where the scatterpacks of annual seeds were just beginning to flower when last I was here…

Mmm… at first glance, disappointment. A little selene which we already have, dominates, followed by gypsophila and a few yellow daisies. But there are signs of more to come, although I don’t think we can expect the exuberance of the last sowing, some 5 years ago. This morning I returned with my camera for a few close-ups…

Here are the selenes. Like so many flowers, there is just too much of magenta and too little of pink about them. Below are a pair of blue flowers.

On the left a blue daisy which could be one of any number of ‘blue daisies’; on the right something I know as a weed of sandy riverbeds, but a flower I’ve always admired. Rather like a morning glory in appearance, it is carried on a fleshy shrub-like plant with spiky leaves, and if I’m not mistaken forms a large spiky seed capsule. I shall have to identify it and check how weedy it will be in our climate; in fact I wonder how a lone plant ended up in my seed mix… 

A wine-red cosmos hints at the rich colours to come, and a variety of nemesias and gypsophila show that all is not magenta…

In fact, it is worth seeking out the nemesias and coming in close to see their delicious colours.

Searching through the bed I start to find the startling clashes and serendipitous blends that so enchanted me during the last incarnation of this garden. I believe it will be a success after all…

Satiated, I turn to the next bed down – the groupings of cannas. And am enchanted by the sinuous lines that characterise this part of the garden.

On I go, crossing the wall of the Makou Dam.

Stopping to look back across the garden I think – I know not for the last time – ‘How I would love Dad to be standing beside me looking back at what we have achieved!’

And on, up into the arboretum.

The Mothers’ Garden still awaits its roses, but over the next days I will clip its hedges. I took the big Toyota Condor seen in front of the garages – a 4×4 based on a Malaysian commercial vehicle, simple, cavernous and ideal for transporting both goods and people, and even for sleeping in when camping (and of course now off the market, leaving a gaping void waiting to be filled) – to Johannesburg in late November, intending to buy the roses. But life took over…

In the arboretum I find the double  Rugosa flowering. I must propagate this intriguing rose. Grown from species seed, like all my Rosa rugosas, this one is double instead of single. Whether it is a mutation or in fact a cross I suppose I will never know. But I suspect it to be a mutation as the colour, growth and leaf is stock-standard.

Onwards I go, enjoying being on the farm again with my dogs, finding the new sights of the season, and listening to the rush of summer waters…

 

ROAMING FOR ROSES

In the process of going out to photograph roses, much else can happen. Hence this rather random post. But let’s start off in the Beech Borders, where ‘Isphahan’ perfumes the air. I promised a close-up of this rose, which starts off the purest of bright pinks before fading to a softer, paler but still lovely colour. For a few short weeks it is a winner.

Recent trips around the garden have varied from misty rain through darkening dusk and bright early morning sun – so forgive some inconsistencies!

Looking up the Beech Borders towards the beech which gives this area its name, and the bench from which one looks down on the lily pond. The last of our azaleas blooms in tandem with the roses.

Turning around from the above scene, yellow and pink water-lilies with ‘New Dawn’ making its way through a tree beyond.

Halfway up the Beech Borders. The pale rose in the centre is again ‘New Dawn’.

On a very different tangent, the large canna bed, replanted at the end of last summer, is coming into its own. I love the Roberto Burle Marx-ish tropical rhythms of the massed leaves, especially early in the summer; there are green, red-brown, yellow/green and pink/red-brown/green leaves in this composition. Beyond the lawn is the Lower Rosemary Border where the swathes of meadowmix annuals are just starting to flower. Hopefully there will be many more pics later in the summer. Meanwhile the first flower not a white alyssum (and rather photoshopped) is included below…. Beyond the meadowmix is the Rosemary Hedge with the Upper Rosemary Border showing above it – the white is a candelabra of yucca flowers, and beyond that again but not visible, the New Old Rose Garden which will feature anon.

Spot the spade – and the hopping logs in the Garden Celebrating an Imperfect Universe just beyond the cannas.

Textbook examples of plants benefitting from backlighting. This time spot the gable.

A precocious bright red canna already in flower – and more signs of a gardener at work – and below the first of those annuals!

Let us proceed to the New Old Rose Garden. Below is an overview.

More roses will be planted this summer, filling gaps and replacing those that did not survive transplantation. I’m quite pragmatic. Many roses will not be replaced; rather I will try new varieties, and duplicate those that have done well and I’ve been able to propagate myself. The only criteria is that they should be bushy old-type (thus often very modern) or interesting genuinely old varieties. And then the underplanting with perennials must proceed!

Photographed from within the Upper Rosemary Border, this shot looks across the Mothers’ Garden, hopefully to be planted with its roses within weeks.

Here Louis and Taubie sit picturing the Mothers’ Garden all planted up…

Here they are again, seen through the Aunty Corrie Rose which is undoubtedly my favourite with its glorious colour and scent – what a pity that it lasts for only a few short weeks!

Of course there are other roses too. Here is the unnamed rambler beginning this year to make a show around the window of the Ellensgate Garden.

And here is its parent – a seedling which grew through a myrtle bush in the lawn –unplanned, untameable, inappropriate and almost impossible to eradicate – and quite frankly I love the cussedness of this chance encounter. Beyond in the border grow a circle of five ‘Ballerina’ roses, one of the few features predating the makeover of this bed 5 or 6 years ago.

Open up the camera, and this is what you see – I am standing outside the gate to the Ellensgate Garden.

Down again to the border: directly above the pot in the above picture, here is a better shot than last week’s of ‘Cardinal Hume’ and his floozy –Lychnis calcedonica.

Further afield the  roses on Freddie’s Dam are looking lovely.

In fact much at Freddie’s Dam is looking lovely, and the first of the white hydrangeas are starting to flower.

And the Makou Dam is not looking too shabby either!

So let’s amble back up to the house, and take in the end of a perfect summer’s day from the stoep…

 

 

RARISH ROSES

Following on from last week’s post, ‘Mothertjie’ by the lily pond is going over but ‘New Dawn’ is on the ascendant. A most unusual sport in that it differs from its parent (from which it ‘sported’) by being repeat flowering, ‘New Dawn’ dates from 1930 and was the first plant ever to be patented. I should not have added that, for my next statement is that it is easily raised from cuttings and my original specimen was a gift from a friend.

It is a large, robust and easy climber which I have both growing into trees and twirling through a shrub border. A friend very successfully trained one I gave her into a well ordered trellis which it shares with a jasmine.

Outside The House that Jack Built the Hybrid Musk ‘Penelope’ and Portland ‘Jacques Cartier’ are all going fortissimo, backed by Clematis Montana. These too were grown from cuttings.

If we step back a little we notice not just how green everything has become, but also the two climbers in the fence below the water oak. They are ‘Felicite et Perpetue’ with accents on the 1st, 2nd and 5th e, very French… It was introduced in 1827 by the gardener to the Duke of Orleans. One more accented e there!

It too sported interestingly, although some sources claim it to be a seedling: ‘Little White Pet’ (which I’ve not found in South Africa) is a small repeat flowering shrub, whiter than the delicious red bud through pink to white of this beautiful rambler.

Moving on we pass the spot where I planted a number of Yuccas – I think Y.gloriosa, gathered as truncheons from a friend’s garden. Like magnolias, the flowers are fleshy and bruise easily and must be captured at just the right moment to display their full beauty.

I picked one from the huge candelabra and laid it down on the mown grass to photograph.

We turn up the Beech Borders where several pink roses, including huge arching bushes of ‘Isphahan’,  are gorgeously scented and appealing, although not at their best after days of soft rain. Details on this rose will have to follow.

Two roses I did manage to take detailed shots of – the first is ‘Mme Ernest Calvat’ who also featured in the previous post.

The second is one of the most beautiful of the striped roses, ‘Variegata di Bologna’, a Bourbon  which sported in 1909 from a rose called ‘Victor Emmanuel’; I can’t help wondering if there is a logical link between the Italian King and the Italian city  which these two roses are named after… Apparently it sometimes reverts to the solid dark violet of the old king. I shall keep an eye out.

I visit ‘Cardinal Hume’ which I have been meaning to photograph for days after telling about giving him to my cousin. He is rather squashed for such a high ranking cleric, by both the heavenly ‘Angels’ Fishing Rod’ (Diarama) and the rather more earthy, not to say brazen, Rose Campion or Lychnis Coronaria.  However she wears her glad rags with no less dignity than he his ecclesiastical purple, and they make a fine couple despite what ‘some people’ might say…

At the end of the walk I sat down on the seat below the spreading branches of the pin oak overlooking the Makou Dam and whilst I was on the phone I kept an eye on the fish rising and the dogs cavorting all around me.

Often these last days it has rained and photo opportunities were quick dashes out the door – or even through the windows. In the process The Ellensgate Garden – close to the house – received special attention.

In the foreground is ‘Maria Callas’, after nearly 50 years still one of the great pink Hybrid Teas, with ‘Bewitched’ growing inside the Ellensgate Garden. A rose with a cast iron constitution, it inherited much from  its parent, ‘Queen Elizabeth’, including its towering stature. Also growing  here, now in its second summer, is what I suspect to be the 1840s rambler ‘Russeliana’ which gives some repeat flowering. If it has a weakness it is a tendency for the flowers to age and die in the truss to a dull grey. I much prefer its more romantic name: ‘Souvenir de la Bataille de Marengo’, but I am pleased I don’t have to remember it by that name! The Nicotiana elata in the garden are, with the exception of one packet of ‘Limelight’ bought from Thompson & Morgan in the 90s, all descended from plants grown by a dear old friend, many years departed, in her garden in the 40s-70s; my mother always referred to them as ‘Mrs Swartses’ and they are by far the most valuable self-seeders in my gardens: easy, willing, and manageable with a colour range through white to deep plums, purples, reds and pinks, and an ability to chose their colours serendipitously to match or support nearby flowers…

It is too long since I photographed the Ellensgate Garden from the formal lounge, especially as it was designed to reflect the proportions of that room, with its windows as wide as the bay, and its width identical to the room’s, all aligned exactly. This photo proves yet again that the junipers which flank the start of the axis from the front door have grown too large, but I am scared of losing their graceful naturalness to hard pruning. Sooner or later I will have to take the plunge.

One last pic: the living room is flooded with scent from the roses on the roll-top desk Louis picked this morning: Harmonie, Maria Callas, Bewitched and Oklahoma.

 

FIT FOR A BRIDE!

A week has passed since I walked down to The House that Jack Built to make certain that all was ready for the arrival of the bride and her groom, my cousin’s son, the next day. What I saw took even my breath away, despite 11 years of calling this spot ‘home’. It has never been more beautiful.

Even before he proposed he asked me what the most beautiful time was on the mountain in spring. I said mid-October. When he proposed he had his plans laid out, the venue booked…

This is where they came after the wedding and reception at the neighbouring Cheerio Gardens to spend their wedding night. As a little boy he had seen me build this house, and this was where he wished to bring his bride…

I took these photos either the day before or the day after the wedding. I remember the earnest little boy, fishing rod in hand, talking to me as I worked on the space where the curved wooden window now stands. With him then was his best friend, the photographer at the wedding, who took a set of photographs here more unique, from what I’ve heard, than you will ever find. I hope to share a few in due course…

Across the dam the yellow azaleas under the purple  Japanese maple were more splendid than ever.

So I wondered in to photograph them, and got caught up in the beauty of the Japanese maples as well.

Growing in the shade below the wall of the Carpetgarden, almost completely hidden these days by the purple maple and a dogwood, are two dissected Japanese maples, one green, one purple – or wine red, which better describes their leaves.

Here you can see what the leaves look like on this exquisite low-growing tree, and below the soft mound it forms. Beyond is the purple form.

The yellow azaleas also demanded more attention.

But these yellows, as you could see in my previous posts, do not alone represent the deciduous azaleas – here are a few more photographed in recent days.

This last one is growing right outside the glass doors outside the living room of the big house. Here it is again:

There are more, and when I return from Johannesburg where I am spending time with my father, I will hopefully get to photograph them too…

It is also the season of the Japanese flowering cherries, and I have not photographed them sufficiently.

There is more, azaleas and other Japanese maples, not to mention the first irises and roses… They will have to wait for a further post. My time is limited, and it is time now for bed…

 

PROGRESS TO REPORT–AND THEN SPRING PICS

The hedges are planted! After more than a year in which the rectangle of barren earth needed constant explanation, the Mothers’ Garden is laid out, the hedges planted and the central yew trimmed dramatically in preparation for training as a pyramid. I hummed and hahed before realising the obvious… The pillars of the lower steps must be visible and the yew must not obscure the dam. But it is surprising how long it took me to realise that a pyramid would be the ideal shape. Since the newly laid grass path has a topdressing of compost similar to the beds, it rather disappears at the moment. And in the harsh light the irrigation pipes are the dominant line. But I promise you: when you sit on the bench looking across this view, with the curves of the New Old Rose Garden to your left, the big lawn and the blobby rhythm of the Upper Rosemary Border to your right, and an assortment of trees framing the view and protecting your back… it is, I believe, potentially the most beautiful spot in the garden. You can read about the planning of the garden here. We have revisited the choice of roses and made some changes. Hopefully when we go to Johannesburg at the end of the month we will collect the 26 roses due to go in here. Although quite frankly at this stage I’d be happy for the hedges to settle down first.

Here is the view from across the big lawn. To the left you can see where we dug up the grass for the paths and are still digging for other lawn work. In the process the upper border is being squared off and enlarged. This will give a new area for annuals and other flowers. I want to start collecting dahlias, as there are a great many old varieties around Haenertsburg. There is a whole new development waiting here! In the process the lawn is now finally surrounded by straight lines – the wavy top border, its shape never really planned, was more and more of an anomaly.

When I turned my head from taking the last picture, this is what I saw. With a bit of imagination you can see the water-spout beyond Alfred’s Arches. Last year I decided the Arches, of pussy-willow, had to be cut down and grow out again; then I relented, but in the winter decided that the Arches really were looking tatty. Now I look at them as they start to fill out with young green, and I find the rustic rhythm totally enchanting. What to do? I guess there is so much else that needs doing that this is far from a priority!

The dogs and I make our way down the Arches, past the Garden Celebrating an Imperfect Universe (much more of a priority!) and down to the Makou Dam. Where we stop to enjoy the reflections and the thousands of backlit plants in the arboretum.

Along the edge there is a self-sown clump of the beautiful local lily, Scilla natelensis. Usually they choose stony well-drained slopes, but these, perched on the edge 30cm above the water, are blissfully happy. Which makes me so too.

Around the corner on the dam wall grow the clump of Siberian irises we first planted there 20 odd years ago, and which we thought had disappeared. As you can see – they are back in force! Then we stop to collect stones for a rosemary bonsai I am preparing as a birthday present for Felicity, my dad’s care-giver and my adopted sister.

Here it is, settling in in the greenhouse. I know nothing about bonsai and have never attempted it before. I’m sure my rocks overhanging the container break every rule, but I’m quite pleased with the way I managed to arrange the gnarled plant as though it had grown out from amongst the stones, just like the ones I found growing in the garrigue when I was in the south of France… But onward and upward (to quote my blogging friend Frances…)

I stopped to photograph the pink flowering cherry, but it was the view of the garden that intrigued me. Look how neat the hedges are on the left, and how good the Upper Rosemary Border is looking with its regular shrubby rhythm. To the right of the red azaleas (which are looking great against the long blue line of the rosemary hedge) there is over 100m2 of recently planted scatterpack. It is germinating nicely and a green haze lies across the ground there. I’m hoping for a fortissimo display by December. And in the bed below that the cannas are beginning to make an impression.

 

This is the area I particularly came to see:  the mollis azaleas in shades of yellow and orange near the darkest of our three copper beeches. Let’s take a closer look.

Difficult to capture the luminous darkness of the beech without the orange of the azalea looking washed out by the strong sunlight.

So we need to take a look at the azalea on its own – and even then the light is far from ideal…

The yellow one, in the shade, is easier to capture. But what I can’t share is the heavenly scent of these azaleas.

For richness of colour, delicacy and perfume these azaleas are a match for the best roses can offer – what a pity that they flower for only a week or two!

I spend some time here, treasuring the moment, enjoying the scented shade.

Taubie agrees and joins me; Mateczka and Abigail snuffle around happily, chase down paths, then come back to check all is OK with us. Monty is away patrolling his territory, probably entertaining visitors at the Cheerio tea-garden, relishing his role as the alpha male (human and otherwise) of the valley…

All in all it is a good place to be… especially at this time of year.

 

SPRING COLOURS 3–LAST WEEKEND CONCLUDED

I am in Johannesburg, busy with a marketing expo for Warriors, but I hear the garden is again wet and cold. An ideal build-up to the spring fair, especially as we planted up pots and annuals during the week, and sowed over 150m2 (150 sq. yards) of scatterpack – the annual meadow mix flowers which were spectacularly successful several years ago, but which I’ve not repeated since.

After all the close-ups over the last two posts, lets take a look at the bigger picture. The arboretum is often now a closed view down a path, suddenly opening up to bigger views and even distant views, and from some spots a panorama down onto the main formal gardens in front of the big house. The thousands of azaleas planted here are starting to flower…

Along the top edge of the arboretum there is an avenue of crab-apples, looking magnificent en masse.

And even more magnificent in detail…

This is Malus floribunda – and abundantly it flowers! Malus purpurea might not be purple, but as is so often the case with plants, ‘purpurea’ indicates a darkness of leaf and flower. I love these dusky shades!

Near the top end of Freddie’s Dam there is a viburnum which has a short magnificent flowering season when its scent spreads far and wide. I’m certain I know what it is called, but I don’t have my resources with me to check… beyond it against the water is the purple new-leaved maple I referred to in my previous post.

Here is a close-up of the flowers – both beautiful and scented. For the rest of the year it is, like so many viburnums, a very non-descript shrub.

And here it is again because – well, why not?

Nearby are some dogwood trees – Cornus florida. Their ‘flowers’ are in fact bracts which start expanding in August and last through to October –much longer than the fragile blossoms!

In the close-up you can see the tiny flowers which are surrounded by the bracts.

I also have a red version of which I am extraordinarily proud.

Another shrub or small tree which does well with  us, and of which I am proud, is Magnolia, considered to be one of the most primitive flowering plants.  This one is M. x soulangiana. It has a fist-sized fleshy flower, heavily scented of… soap. That is merely because I got to know the scented soap before the flower. It only slightly dulls my pleasure in it!

So where does that leave us? With more blossoms to explore, in particular the various pyrus (pears) and prunus (cherries, almonds etc.); here is a taste. I’ll need to get home and get my camera out for more.

One last indulgence. Wisteria. In particular the wisteria and japonica together in the Anniversary Garden.

 

One last one… in the bed up against the house the first diaramas shoot from nothingness to ther mauve flowers in only a week or two. They combine rather dramatically with the last of the orange aloes…