TAUPE AND TAWNY – OR WINTER’S GRUNGE?

Between late afternoon and dusk I take a walk – and whereas on other days the drabness has depressed me, today its subtlety has filled me with joy. So I concentrate on capturing the colours of deepest winter in my photographs…

The last photo first – deep dusk on the stones of the path at the Cottage Garden

The Beech Borders first draw my attention to the photogenic nature of the theme…

The Beech Tree and seat, backed by a semi-circular hedge of witchazel and lime

Then the seat, and the textures in the composition keep me busy – meanwhile the dogs are ratting in the tall grass behind me, unconcerned that the walk is interrupted.

 I could of course claim that the colour scheme is considered and deliberate…

How could I a few days ago have found this sight depressing?

 A carpet of leaves, evenly strewn, and soft light – a glow…

And nestling in this season’s death lies next season’s birth.

 Beech buds seem to hold more promise than most other trees…

And the promise is reinforced by the spiraeas, sporting minute flowers even before all autumn leaves are shed.

 Each flower no more than 3mm 1/8in across

Whereas the memory of summer’s flowers are… well… faded…

 Verbena bonariensis’s tiny but intense purple flowers produce plentiful seed

…Some less so than others…

 Everlastings never quite lose their colour, the remnants of summer’s gold hidden in winter’s amber.

A lone grass seedhead sways  over the last leaves of the water lilies.

  Survivor of mower and marauder, strimmer and scythe…

The light off the Makou Dam is cold as moonlight.

 And earlier in the week we saw four otters play in the water

Browns seem to be plated in silver…

 Bracken leaf near the Makou  Dam

 In the arboretum the hydrangeas which once marched up the hill in blues and whites under a canopy of tulip trees now wear neutral fatigues.

  Though even now their colour contributes drama …

Witchazel is Old Gold in the gloom – highlight rather than colour.And  the leaves are the richest deep brown.

 

Texture is all…

Seeds and branches 

…And Mateczka’s colouring fits in perfectly.

 Here she is among the Swamp Cypresses at the far fountain.

Bark detailing becomes prominent, and the thin layer of fallen leaves and twigs contrast with the water in the stream.

 The darkest of the Japanese maples has quite a different winter charm.

Nearby the most dramatically wintery of our many tree ferns salute passersby.

 Almost evergreen in a frost-free climate, ours are decidedly seasonal!

Below I played with a different format – do you know how much purple there is in these browns!

Have I mentioned texture before…

Bench and stump in Quercus Corner; a good rest in the furthest corner of the garden.

 Heading back towards the House that Jack Built I photograph the hydrangeas along Oak Avenue.

 Is this what I really saw, or is the camera becoming creative with the available light? Fact is, the hydrangeas under the verticals of the trees made for an impressive composition…

Finally – well, near finally, for from here we move back to my first photo – we see the view from The House that Jack Built…

I have always called the bridge the icon of my garden – and for the first time in years the half-moon meadow is cleared and echoes the curve of the bridge.

 

WALK ABOUT ON A HOT SUMMER DAY

I’ve been looking at old photos of late for the posts I’m preparing on the Rosemary Borders. Along the way I found some of the Cottage Garden. Hmmm. It is very green this year. I like the look of it, but there are too few flowers in the mix. On the other hand it is never without flowers either!

In these views the  tall yellow verbascums and the Hydrangea  serrata dominate, but the eryngium (see detail below) and solidago also add colour. The dark Eucomis (Pineapple Lily) bottom left is starting to make a strong statement, but not many would say that it ‘adds colour’ and of course the zebra grass has tremendous presence.  The gauras are slow off the mark this year and the salvias are getting going…

Near the front door a pink Gaura and Sedum ‘Herbstfreude’ compliment each other beautifully. This is the first year of their co-habitation – and I have not the slightest idea if the combination is deliberate or not, so I shall claim that it is yet another sign of my gardening genius!

I’ve moved down onto the road below the house now, where the way the trees around the dam form a wall of green these days can clearly be seen.  Much of what is now super-green becomes super-bright by autumn. But I’ll keep you waiting till early April before I start that show !

The above photograph illustrates the rather over the top inspiration for the Tulip Tree Avenue; when we first conceived it my dad jokingly suggested calling it the Avenida da Liberdade – Marques de Pombal after this impressive (and impressively named) avenue in Lisbon – the Marques having been the man responsible for rebuilding much of Lisbon after an earthquake in 1755. Our Avenue has developed into a very beautiful feature. The linear layout now melds happily with the organic paths through the arboritum, and the concept which we feared might jar is, if I may again modestly say, rather good.  These pics are specially for Deborah from Green Theatre, who I know will enjoy our avenue!

For the view of the Tulip Tree Avenue in the two pics above,  I’ve moved across the dam and a little downstream. There are  ten Liriodendron tulipifera  (Tulip) trees on either side of the avenue, which is around 70m long and 10 meters wide, stem to stem.  A path runs up either side of the avenue and between the path and the trees there is a planting of hydrangeas in a mix of blues and whites. Between the paths is a solid mass of azaleas, photos of which have featured in a previous post  .  Like so many of our trees, they were grown from seed by my father. The hydrangeas on the left (upper) side can be seen in the first photo and those on the right in the second one.

This last photo is chosen rather randomly from the walk. But since this is a rather random post, it seemed suitable. The hydrangeas are crying out for a post of their own, but this chance combination with a self-sown native, Crinum macowanii , the River Crinum, really caught my eye!

 

WEEKLY PIC: DECEMBER WEEK 3

‘Bobbeltjies’ they are called in our family – ‘Little Baubles’, and how appropriate that I thought to feature them this week, because it was only whilst processing the pic that I saw the Christmas connection!  The diminutive is important.  The water drops give a sense of scale – each bauble is less than 2mm or about 1/16in. across.  The flowers are so small that I’ve never seen a petal with the naked eye – but they can just be identified bottom right.  The flowers are pink, the seeds ripen quickly to orange and then black. I have no idea what the plant is called, and whether it is considered a weed by some.  (Any suggestions?)  All I know is that to me it has always been a symbol of a happy garden, this willing little plant that makes so much impact with its small flowers and seeds daintily carried above bright green leaves.  It finds its spot and compliments whatever might be nearby, the epitome of the welcome self-seeder!

 

A WALK DOWN THE GARDEN PATH

The Cottage Garden path that is. Not terribly inspired photographs, I’m afraid. The day was hot and muggy, the light bright but without contrast. I over-compensated, darkening by an f-stop too far. And I only have photoshop 4. My camera is  disappointing me. My computer screen could do with a good wipe, which might improve the pics. *thought* Perhaps I’m being a little grumpy? But I have a desire to share and so, internet willing, here are a few views of the Cottage Garden.

Three narrow stone paths cut through the Cottage Garden, so that it is never more than 2.5m wide. Negotiating these uneven paths with a tray full of teacups or drinks on the way to sitting out under the oak is an interesting way of dicing with death. This path leads from the front door towards the road. The road in turn leads past the waterlily pond and the Makou Dam in front of my parents’ house before swinging up along the Long Border to the entrance.

This is the view across the path, which is visible to the left. On the right my cottage can be seen. This grassed parking spot is the coward’s route down to the oak tree.

A pleasing mix of foliage rather than flowers characterises this spot at the moment. I added a good strain of the little wild white campion, Silene undulata, which was growing in the veld some years ago, and it now romps through the garden like a child at a party. When it gets too boisterous or starts to collapse on everything, I get strict and pack it off to bed. The next spring it returns. The bird bath is a lovely terracotta one, which suffered a friendship-ending fate when the neighbour dropped a branch onto it many years ago in Johannesburg. The glass bowl was an interesting replacement. The whole thing needs leveling – the bits in it all help to distract one (or were put there in the hope that they would)  from its leaning ways. The birds like the bits and don’t seem to mind the angle…

These last two pics show the plants on either side of the path in more detail; the bird bath is just to the right out of sight now. The green rod referred to in a post some days back did, indeed, turn out to be the orange Watsonia, W. pillansii, which is indigenous to our area. And in fact it DID grow there last year too – but not as tall and torch-like!

 

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.