SOON THE SOLSTICE MOON

Soon the solstice moon will be full. I shall be in Johannesburg, not here to see it. More’s the pity. Somehow the solstice and equinox full moons have always meant more to me than the events themselves… perhaps literally it is the turning of the tides, even though I sit at 1400m (4500ft) and 300km from the closest sea, and over 1000 miles away from the sea I know and love…

In the above photo, taken from the arboretum at 5.30 this afternoon in the growing dusk, you can see the Big House and to its left Trailertrash Cottage.

 I love winter. (Mostly. Last night it depressed me.) I particularly love this view in winter, the view from The House that Jack Built’s big window. (More or less – this was taken from the terrace under the Water Oak.) The traceries of trees are reflected in the water, some late colour coming from a swamp cypress, and for the rest the palette is reduced to dark greens and neutrals. The angles of the earth, overlaid all summer, support the vertical trunks of trees. Light and frost will now play on these surfaces, and I will only tire of them at the end of August, when all starts to change anyway.

This afternoon the dogs and I went on a walk, our first real walk in 12 days. We took along my new camera to test especially its low light potential. We were not disappointed. Whilst on Samaria one of the plates connecting the batteries on the old camera was irretrievably lost in the dust. It will take weeks in Johannesburg to repair. I thought a cheap and compact  point-and-shoot was the solution – one which could take low-light snapshots in a way my bulky 12x zoom (and rather ancient) Canon S2 can not. I bought the entry level Canon A490 and took it on its first real outing…

This photo, taken in the gloom of the steps up from the bridge – always a difficult place to get enough light – proves that it was a worthwhile choice. Besides having a much shorter lens which lets through more light, the camera  can go up to ISO 1600, 4x as much as the old S2. This I think was taken on ISO 800, but strangely it is not indicated in the properties of the photo.

 Here is The House that Jack Built in its meadow, and beyond Freddie’s Dam with the bridge visible over the left side of the cottage… a stone cottage in a meadow on a dam in a valley on a mountain…

 

This photo of Mateczka – now seven months old and a lovely animal – is clearly shot at high ISOs, and there is no detail to her fur. But it is the kind of snapshot I would never have got in the poor light with the S2, and a rather lovely snapshot it makes. I look forward to less self-conscious photography with the new camera!

 

 

 Here is The House that Jack Built as seen from the bridge. With a little imagination you can see the moon reflected in the right hand gap between the trees. I could see it clearly, but you will have to accept my word on that one!

Silver-grey fur can be both a memory of glories past and a promise of beauty to come… wisteria seedpods and magnolia buds.

 And purple-grey is a highly fashionable colour, although my mother lovingly and simply referred to these flowers as ‘Old-fashioneds’ – aged Salvia leucantha finds a new subtlety after the frost…

 We spend a happy hour or more in the garden; Mateczka dashing through fallen leaves with all the joyful indulgence of the young when making a noise, Taubie and Stompie – our two old ladies – plodding along contentedly, and Monty (who believes himself the alpha-male of the valley despite his six-inch legs) dashing off to investigate before running back and jumping up against me adoringly. 

And thus, as the chill becomes more and more noticeable,  we reach home and heat…

 

WINTER IN AFRICA?

Gardeninggonewild have launched their latest photography contest, and throwing caution to the wind I have decided to enter – not because I’ve got prize-winning photos in my opinion, but because I do have prize-winning subject matter! Not surprisingly, the subject is ‘Winter’ – and in South Africa it is – as I’ve none to subtly been pointing out – summer. So I trawled through some old photos I took during the past three years. I’ve narrowed my search down to three possibilities. But which is the best, or the most suitable candidate to enter?

*IDEA!* Put it to my friends. Ask them to comment and suggest which they think is the best and if possible why. Ask for negative criticism too: why is a particular photo not the best candidate. After all, we are all much more subjective about our own work than other people’s. I look forward to hearing your opinion, and I thank you in advance for helping me to decide which photo to enter!

1 A wheelbarrow's winter

2 Winter sunrise

3 Ode to winter

 

Mauves and orange and late winter warmth…

A beautiful Sunday on the veranda at my parents’ house; a glorious roast leg of lamb for lunch, and afterwards my mother’s first ever perambulation around the garden in a wheelchair; she is 80, has been diabetic for 45 years and of late has become frail. ‘Broos’ we say in Afrikaans, which also translates as fragile and vulnerable. After fighting against the idea of a wheelchair for ages, she quite looked forward to the ride, and was amused by the word perambulation. (Did you know that pram, as in a baby’s pushcart, is a contraction of this word?) Out on the veranda she could admire the combination up against the house of the earliest of the diaramas, D. gracile, with its silvery-white bracts and soft mauve flowers against the orange Aloe saponaria which has been flowering since autumn.

Diarama  (hairbells, fairybells, wandflowers or most poetically: fairies’ fishing rods) is one of the most beautiful of our indigenous flowers, and D. gracile is endemic to our area. It is a shorter and more solid plant than most, carrying its flowers on shorter and more upright wands and it is the first to flower. The bracts appear silvery in the sunlight and combine exquisitely with the soft mauve flowers. But the zing comes from the contrasting Aloe saponaria flowers! They are one of the few aloes that can survive our bitter winter nights unscathed. They multiply gleefully from the root and flower cheerfully for months on end.

So out we went, round the back of the house where the steps are shallow, and for the first time this visit she saw the primulas growing where they will – seeding in cracks one doesn’t even realise exist. She looked and looked as I practiced small manoeuvres with the wheelchair and the dogs looked on in exasperation at this new, slow form of going for a walk.  

It always amazes me that we battle so to grow most primulas in South Africa – in fact many are quite impossible, disliking our harsh springs, but in late winter P. malacoides puts on a brilliant show, spreading as it wishes. Once you’ve planted it, it is there for ever. I remember one plant that somehow found its way to the steps to my classroom. Four years later there were so many that I allowed the girls to pick them on their way into class!

Out onto the drive we went, and past the first azalaes. Confidently my mother declared the white ones her favourite these days, musing on the days when the pinks, or mauves, or reds took her fancy first…

Down we went past the flowering quinces (japonica, or Chaenomeles speciosa). They were of the first shrubs we planted when we started gardening here in the early 80s;  a red, a white and a spectacular small crimson one (perhaps ‘Atrococcinea’). To our delight the mix produced an offspring across the road, to where  one of the beautiful but bitter yellow fruit must have rolled. It is apple-blossom pink. We stopped to admire it and to reminisce about the first time we noticed its blossoms. Subsequently one year I grew a large number of seedlings from here and planted two hedges on either side of the Anniversary Garden from them. Some are rampant, some beautiful, some non-descript. Turning seedlings into hedges is not a good idea at the best of times, but I love the haphazardness of it all.

On we went… stopped to pick a sprig of witchhazel, to discuss the nemesias which deserve a post of their own, the new growth on the roses and aphids and their absense (thankfully!) We looked at the changes I made during the winter to the Big Lawn, simplifying the upper edge and removing three of the five circular beds cut into it by our late great gardener, Phineas Magoale, who did so much to establish the garden. We looked at the young sweetpeas, planted where he had always done, and remembered how proud he used to be of them. Then we turned  back and up the avenue between the Sequoia trees past more azaleas and two beautiful camellias, stopping and studying plants that have become friends in the years since they were planted: the Scilla natalensis, wild off the farm, beginning to shoot; the rose-scented pelargonium, always the worse for frost at this time of year; also from wild stock on the farm the Aristea galpinii,  with the promise of their glorious blue stars only just beginning to show through the leaves although last week in Tzaneen’s sub-tropical climate I saw them in full bloom… then back around the house and another threshold crossed as she sank into her familiar, comfortable chair near the fire.

 

It’s so schitzo

Spring - especially the early part - tends to be a bit schizo around here. It is the traditional tourist season, as we are known for our azaleas and blossoms on the mountain, but it tends to be all-colour-and-no-green. It is in fact my least favourite season. Which doesn't stop me from going totally overboard with my camera as though I was a tourist and not the rather sceptical observer of spring's excesses... this pic captures the strange combination of winter and colour that I speak of...

 

Spring is in the air

Crab-apples (Malus floribunda) are of the first blossoms to test the air. A few start opening early August if it is warmish. At this time I wish for cold. Spring can be the cruellest month in South Africa. T.S. Elliott would like it here. August and September can bring harsh heat before the spring rains start - usually in mid- October. That is the biggest difference between us and most temperate climates: spring so often starts off as a stressful time for plant and human. August is the suicide month, often windy and desolate. So far so good this year: good (best ever) winter rain; cool to cold weather; little wind.

 

Weekly pic: August week 3

There was never any doubt: Buddleja salvifolia would be my mid-August subject. As we reach the magic moment when the world starts to waken, the typical honeyed Buddleja scent wafts on the air; the warmer, the stronger it is. If kept trimmed every alternate year the foliage is lovely and the shrub effective. The flowers can kindly be described as a soft grey with a yellowish eye. A small percentage are whitish or even mauvish or blueish, but don't expect brightly beautiful. Its chief attraction is the deliriously summery smell which hits you unexpectedly, even on cold days like today. It is an endemic pioneer shrub on our mountain and will protect second generation growth like Halaria lucida (tree fuchsia) from the frost.

 

Still life with fruit bowl, narcissus and bridge

A recent success with instant gardening inspired this photo. The paperwhite narcissus bloomed within three weeks of being 'planted' in stones and water. I had been threatening to take a view from inside (as opposed to hanging out the window) for some time. The rich colour of the tall meadow grasses right outside the window helped prompt me in early July to 'do the Nike'. So here you are. You can see what I mean about living right on the water...

 

View from the Makou Dam

A late winter view from the dam below my parents' house up the valley towards my dam; the skeleton trees in the distance on the left are the liquodambers on my dam beyond my house. Makou means Muscovy duck; I don't know if there were Muscovies on the dam back in the early '50s when my grandfather bought the farm. One of my earliest memories is the name of the dam, and asking what it meant. The two trees to the right are Swamp Cypresses (Taxodium); beyond the huge shadow of the bluegums - see views across the arboritum in 'A walk in my garden' - are two Pin Oaks (Quercus palustris). on the very right Alfred's Arches can be seen beyond the Upper Rosemary Border. It is difficult in the dead of winter to remember how lush and green the garden was!

 

Berberis julianae

Berberis julianae is very similar to B. darwinii: the latter has darker flowers on longer stalks, so that they clearly form hanging bells. B. julianae flowers slightly earlier for me, which seems to be the opposite of what the books say. But plants can't read, and don't always follow instructions anyway. Although the tiny flowers are striking, it is the way they combine with the small percentage of leaves which turn red that really lifts this evergreen shrub into a class of its own. Furthermore there is a shiny healthy quality to the shrub in all seasons - and its thorns make it good for security. All in all Berberis offers a great range of species - low-maintenance, yet appearing well-groomed.

 

Hamamelis (Witch Hazel)

Witch Hazel is a scented, winter-flowering shrub with strangely attractive ribbony flowers in yellow and sometimes orange. Mine I grew from imported seed - they are the only ones I know of in South Africa. The best examples are named cultivars, but I'm pretty happy with my seed-grown shrubs! They have large rounded leaves which colour a good yellow in autumn. In total I have about 12 examples; some were accidentaly planted with some seed-grown lime trees (Tilia) in a hedge. Their leaves are very similar. It took two years before I realised some of my limes were producing ribbony winter flowers! I've kept the combo - it appeals to my sense of mixing the formal and informal, the controlled and the spontaneous, and so far they have kept pace with the limes - which will be trimmed into a hedge anyway.