LATE WINTER WINDS

By mid-August I find new material difficult to come by. Remember it is our February, when even the joys of winter have become tedious. True, as I took the staff’s children up to the tar road to catch the school bus this past week, it was perfectly light on the way there and the sun rose as I returned, burning red against the escarpment sky. Red because of the dust and smoke: not only is it drier than I can ever recall, but August, traditionally our windiest month, is true to form. Result in our high biomass and forested area…. worse fires than normal at this time of year.

Today, Sunday, is gustier than I can recall, although one does tend to forget such horrors, and the wind is chilly; during last week, according to one report, there was snow in all 9 provinces on one day for the first time ever. Result: a biting wind, although our night time lows remained above freezing. In our protected valley the much more insidious effect of slowly dropping still air brings more cold than a wind which stirs things up and evens out the temperature gradient between places.

This strange bit of land sculpture  – a forest of bamboo stakes – is Lucas’ effective solution to  protecting the young tree ferns from the porcupines who, just as in the drought of the 90s, have taken to eating out the hearts of the tree ferns.

It is a while since all four dogs featured in one photo and there is not a great deal else to share. So here they are, from front to back: Monty, x Jack Russell, alpha male of all  species including human in the valley, showing he’s done a few more miles than in his youth, but still going strong; Taubie, x Bull Terrier/Border Collie, oldest and most beloved of all my dogs, the matriarch; Abigail, daughter to Monty and a Dr Seuss creation, tiniest and busiest of the dogs, who works hard all day with the staff and then turns into the sweetest of lapdogs at night; and Mateczka, Rhodesian Ridgeback and the puppy, even though she is nearly three and by far the largest. Watching her and Abigail play is one of lives great joys!

I’ve kept this shot of the Upper Rosemary Border for last, because it really doesn’t show anything new. However it is very satisfying to see how good this border can still look at the windy tail-end of winter!

Stop Press: after days of keeping my (rather unsatisfactory) long lens on the ready, I have just photographed a White Helmetshrike through the guest room window. I remember first seeing them on the farm in the late 90s, once only. Rather humorous looking with their large yellow serrated eye-wattle and grey ‘helmet’, they move in groups and are very noticeable as they flutter their way along in small bursts. They have been a regular presence the last few months. Roberts’ Book of Birds speaks of “irruptions westwards in times of drought”; having looked up irruptions, a new word to me, (Ecology - to increase rapidly and irregularly in number) I come to the conclusion that here we have yet another sign of drought. Is it that they do not like our mountain in the wet?

 

MORE WINTER–AND MORE HISTORY

I’m loving the winter colour in the Upper Rosemary Border. It was particularly noticeable after the slightest of drizzles a few nights back, the wet and the even light intensifying all colour. Unfortunately immeasurably little rain fell and we end July with a record 3 month period with absolutely no rain recorded. Two days, one in January and one in Feb, of over 100mm each (4 inches) have given a deceptively optimistic impression; without having counted I would say we have had less than 20% of the average number of rain days in the first 7 months of the year…

The next pic was taken early on a sunny morning when the pale trunks and branches of the big bluegums and the many naked trees in the arboretum caught my attention. 

But what I really wish to share with you is a photo of the gate from Ellensgate, the house in Pretoria where my father grew up, which was recently posted on Facebook by a cousin; we have been having international chats about old family photos, not only family gatherings from our youth, but even pictures from our parents’ youth. One recent pic even led to over 100 comments as cousins chattered away across the continents and the years. Here is the photo of the gate:

And here is this very gate photographed for today’s post:

And thereby hangs a tale, one which has featured before, but never with the evidence attached as here! It is the story of how the Ellensgate Garden, the first of the ‘formal gardens’ I added on Sequoia, came to be; of how this gate was central to the development of all my thinking.

In fact I quite co-incidentally referred to the Ellensgate post as the first on my blog in my previous post, and gave you a link. At the risk of being repetitive I do so again, for I tell the story in great detail and with many  picture accompaniments there. If you read it last week, then see this as a postscript. If you didn’t, then here it is again. And please take note that the gate was recently sanded down and oiled, and is looking very chipper again. (Oops; bad choice of word where wood is involved…)

 

MID-WINTER–IN THE 70s!

That is 70 degrees Fahrenheit, not the days of my youth! Or, for the rest of the world: in the 20s Celsius. And had I been up at first light I could have told you if there was little or no frost on this perfect Saturday in winter; but I was not.

Early afternoon I set off to see what I could find to show you our winter colour at Sequoia. In fact we also set off to put flowers and wine in The House that Jack Built for a couple from sub-tropical Tzaneen who wanted a romantic breakaway with a fire tonight. We left pink camellias and white azaleas for them to find; but I did not photograph them.

Chaenomeles – japonica – always gives joy in late winter, and is just beginning its season. This very plant flowered with the wisteria last year and I hope it will last as long again.

Australian native, Grevillea, also has a long season starting in winter. Because the sunbirds (our version of hummingbirds) love them, I have planted many more during the last years, including one in front of our bedroom window. They are not showy (though might seem so in this close-up), but they are easy and dependable.

Nandina can always be relied on to provide a show in winter – older plants mainly with their berries and young ones with more spectacular leaf displays, which strictly is simply very late autumn display.

Other leaves also impress: one of our local shrubs I have never identified. We simply refer to ‘the little wild shrub with the occasional orange leaf’. But at this time of year they are more than occasionally orange…

One year I realised that there were a number of yellow-leaved eucalyptus seedlings growing at a spot along our road. I dug up several, but only one survived. I coppice it every two years to keep it under 4m, and every winter it obliges with its orangey-yellow leaves, which then, like many conifers, turn back to green in the warmer weather. I find it interesting that this broadleaf, which also behaves so much like a conifer in other ways with its quick upright growth, should do this. I know of no others than those from this little patch. Anyone else ever come across something like it?

Time for a diversion. When I went into the greenhouse to close up later this afternoon I remembered that there were a few shots I wanted to take there…

If there is a symbol of the difference having a place I can keep – through insulation only – over 5 degrees, it is the fact that the fuchsias are blooming in July…

Sweetpeas planted into tall pots will be transferred into the Upper Rosemary Border come the Haenertsburg Spring Festival end September to add colour from more than just the ubiquitous azaleas and flowering cherries. Hold thumbs for this one!

And then there is this ‘hanging basket cactus’ which a friend gave me; one of the most common  plants of its kind in South Africa and easy to propagate and grow, if kept a little above freezing. But I’ve had a devil of a time putting a name to it. Does anyone know it as Schlumbergera or as Christmas Cactus? Other ideas? …Back into the garden.

The rosemary hedges were buzzing with bees and looking stunning. What a joy they are in winter; correct that: all year! But the great uplifting moment of the day was the sudden intense honey-sweetness of the Buddleja salvifolia. Usually this thrill first hits in early August, so I was doubly excited to smell it today!

Recognisably a buddleja from both the flower and the scent, it lacks the stunning colour of B. davidii which is almost a weed in Europe but not so common here, although very easy to grow and to propagate. I have identified and propagated a few which are slightly bluer, or pinker, or have a stronger yellow eye. Mostly, frankly, they are a dirty pale grey; and this is one of the latter.

A scent warm and sensual like that,  coming as it does at the tail-end of winter, can be forgiven anything!

 

THE PAST IS SEPIA, THE PRESENT IS BRIGHT

Casting around on a lazy winter Sunday for material to update my blog, I return to the pics gleaned off Mooseys. This photo is five years old.

However all is not dull during a South African winter; the aloes can be relied on to inject colour. This is Aloe saponaria which is virtually impervious to the frost and flowers for many weeks. These photos were taken around the house this afternoon.

But some of the loveliest winter photographs are naturally devoid of colour, so let us return to sepia nostalgia from the long-gone winter of 2007…

 

WINTER PALETTE

What does winter offer today, I ask, as I set off on a walk with the dogs, and the answer comes: colours of the most amazing subtlety. Here then is a selection.

Setting the scene, the late sun through the Upper Rosemary Border shows up greens – pale and limey or dark; shades of grey; browns, mainly rich, even reddish; bleached straw; and the cold blue shadows.

This Leonitus ocynifolia has featured before, in summer and in winter – interestingly in a much more colourful post after rain, exactly two years ago. Today it is the contrast between the shaded background and sunlit foreground which intrigues me.

The bench at the top end of the Makou Dam will feature a few times now.

Here it is again across the water.

I had never thought of pearl as a winter colour before.

I love the reflection of the winter trees showing up the twigs.

Looking back from the furthest end of the Beech Axis – in summer these hydrangeas are brilliant blue. The strong contrast in the light turns the Beech Borders into a featureless abstract where even I, who know what I’m looking at, can recognise little.

But I do find this feature, one of the simplest in my gardens, very effective no matter the season or the light. Yet, to my surprise I find I don’t have a single good post          on it where one can see the effect of the design in summer. There are so-so pics         hidden in long posts here.

This is a view I’ve not shared before. Were it  not that I’m tiring of the blue light, I would rather like this shot. It is taken in the woodland around the overflow of Freddie’s Dam. At the end of this stretch there is a little bridge before the path splits and curves.

Just above the bridge the water cascades into a pool, and from there the course is relatively level as it returns to the bottom of the valley.

A touch more colour at last, but the frost-bleached heads of the hydrangeas really do not photograph well in the cold blue light.

I love the steps that lead up from the curved bridge over the outlet at Freddie’s Dam in their sombre winter garb.

All over the garden piles of brushwood await mulching, and we have yet to do this year’s pruning… I need to arrange the mulching soon!

For several years now the view of The House that Jack Built from the Carpet Garden has been obscured by the red Japanese Maple. This winter we will lift the canopy, so that the reflection at least is visible from here.

A cornucopia of compost… except that it is not compost, but leafmould. Last year’s supply has been moved out and awaits distribution, whilst the yellow leaves of the snake-bark maple continued to fall once the clearing and gathering had been done.

A silver-green twig, fallen from a Mexican Oak – Quercus mexicana.

The darkest of our Japanese Maples, and beyond it the fallen leaves of a Swamp Cypress colour the ground.

The autumn colours drained away, the Red Plane still contributes to the winter palette.

And a last shaft of sunlight falls across a carpet of oak leaves

This bench looks across Quercus Corner, my dad’s collection of oak trees at the furthest end of the garden.

Nearby is another feature I don’t think I’ve ever commented on: an unusual asymmetrical cone formed with Abelia hedges marks the entrance to the Old Fountain Garden which lies between Quercus Corner and the lowest of the plantations.

A cottage across a meadow…

And to conclude – a photo that sums up the topic rather well: winter palette

 

DEATH OF A DRAMA QUEEN

Early on a coldest-to-date morning last week. I look out of the guest room window to see how the aloes are doing. Ohoh… The drama queen, the hater of frost, is doing a Sarah Bernhardt on us, a slow languid collapse into a dramatic death. In the 23 years since the house was built and the aloes planted here, we have had three seasons in which they all flowered fully. Yet year after year we hope. The last few years have been particularly cruel, with the edges of some  leaves  also turning mushy before drying to hard brown scar tissue.

Sarah Bernhardt is always the first to complain – perhaps because she starts off with flower trusses held on the horizontal. She is Aloe marlohtii, and most dramatic and statuesque of all South African aloes. (Says I, possibly a little parochially…)

This aloe, with its tall dense candelabra which turn to yellow as they open should be easy to identify, as few such flowerers can survive even light frost. It might be a hybrid of Aloe spectabilis, which has heavier leaves and less elegant flower trusses.  Whatever it is, its beauty is often obvious before the frost gets to it.

 Aloe arborescens is a local which forms a branching trunk. Last year we thinned the branches and this year the rosettes of leaves look better and the plants are flowering prolifically. It takes a substantial frost to damage this one – and as it is an early flowerer, it has given quite a show normally before that happens.

But back to our drama queen… She staggers around the stage for a few more days, lifting her head just sufficiently to check if she’s getting the attention she thinks she deserves. Then a colder night plunges the knife once more and leaves even her companions darkened and weak-kneed.

Finally last night the temperature fell to minus three degrees Celsius… Even some of the arborescens flowers succumbed.

The other aloes are all on their way out. And the great Sarah Bernhardt, shrivelled and insignificant in death, is difficult to picture in her role as the grand dame of them all…