A WALK THROUGH THE PINE PLANTATIONS

Hurry, this will be a quick walk, almost a jog. Little time. And no books on hand to confirm niceties of names. We went to check on the cutting that was happening.

Crocosmias love the pines. So do the dogs.

In late summer plectranthus with white or pale blue flowers grow in abundance in the shade. The most attractive have a blotch, caused by an air bubble under the outer ‘skin’

They are gently hairy and the tiny flowers in long spikes are worth a closer look.

Eve Palmer rather fancifully maintains that from the right angle the flowers look like little mice. (Note to self: A post on her book Under the Olive which I’ve just reread.)

Another note to self. Try propagating this silver-leaved helichrysum which unlike most grey leaved plants which are that colour to protect against heat, seem to be mirrored in order to catch as much light as possible in the shade which they love.

We call it the forest hibiscus, a herby shrub with coin-sized flowers in late summer. Usually they are apple-blossom pink. This white one caught my eye. It too needs to be propagated!

On the home stretch. The dogs always love a walk in the pine forests.

MARCH2011 WEEK 5 – ORANGE & BLUE

The orangeness of orange, and what to mix it with, became a topic over the weekend. Crocosmia aurea was the cause of the discussion. I looked around me for inspiration – and there it was: equally self-sown, equally striking, in flower at the same time and yet nowhere together… so I picked a few sprigs and put them in a vase. Crocosmia aurea and Browallia americana.

I find very little in my books about Browallia, and them mostly it is about B. speciosa, the Bush Violet, a perennial. This South American annual is rated Z9, which we of course are not. However the seed clearly survives our winters! It first came to us as an opportunistic seedling with another plant from our neighbour. She in turn got it from her late sister in Natal who, we assume, imported the seed. Where it is happy it self-seeds freely, preferring moist semi-shade and well cultivated ground, developing quickly in late summer. If too many germinate, they are easily thinned out.

I have just had a lot of fun, first taking a series of pictures of Browallia, then editing them and finally ‘ posterizing’ the chosen version, which has added a bit of zing to the layered leaf-on-leaf texture. (Being on holiday has certain advantages.) Here they are with White Japanese anemones and a ‘Queen Elizabeth’ rose.

WILDFLOWER WEDNESDAY: CROCOSMIA AUREA

The most striking, the easiest – indeed, you might even say the weediest – of our wild flowers on Sequoia is Crocosmia aurea. It is orange. Amazingly, overwhelmingly orange, as only a plant that uncompromisingly exists in all its parts and stages in shades of one colour can be.

Flower spikes are carried high on wiry stems that zigzag appealingly from bud to bud. They are beautifully graphic in the bud stage, but somehow become muddled and unphotogenic once opened. I so wish I had taken the above picture a few days earlier to show you…

Even this photo seems to have angled itself in a way that barely shows the zigzag; but it looks good against masses of its own leaves as well as those of flag irises where it has sown itself with great enthusiasm in the bed opposite the garage, and strikingly visible as you approach the house by car from under the avenue of Sequoia trees that line the driveway.

Here is that view, with the Ellensgate Garden, which the living room looks out onto, beyond.(Read more about this garden here.) And below is a photo taken from the stoep (veranda) which shows the extent to which this mass of orange has made itself at home. I guess the first plants were brought here from where they grew wild on the farm, but only a few. 25+  years on they are the centre of the March focus in this part of the garden.

Tatyana: does that make them as weedy as they are in your garden? I have elsewhere removed them. I should have removed them three years ago already from the Ellensgate Garden, where they do not do justice to the soft pink ‘Bewitched’ roses, also blooming their hearts out at the moment. Whether it is laziness that I have not yet done so, or bad management, or just my laissez-faire attitude to the superior will of plants when it comes to knowing their place, I  will leave to each of you to decide. I know that this easy local is one of my favourites in the garden.

Growing wild on the farm I also have the red, rib-leaved C.paniculata which flowers a little earlier; it is the parent of the famous ‘Lucifer’. Ironically I have never had success with any of the (few) Crocosmia cultivars available in South Africa, including one I sceptically bought as ‘Lucifer’ And if the wilding is so willing, why cry over the cultivar…?

This post is inspired by Gail of ‘Clay and Limestone’ who started  Wildflower Wednesday on every fourth Wednesday of the month.