EASY ECOSYSTEMS

I could start this post in many ways – but there is nothing like the wow-factor to get you reading… So let me introduce you to this beauty: it is Gladiolus densiflorus.

It is one of many plants I wish to touch on in this post, my contribution to Wildflower Wednesday, a monthly look by garden bloggers around the world at those plants which are native to their immediate area, started by Gail of Clay and Limestone several years ago.

I suddenly became aware again a few days back of a truth I’d come to take for granted: I grew to love gardening on this farm because everything grows so harmoniously here. Many years ago I walked through the young ‘garden’ with a friend, very much a city boy, who could not believe the scale and assumed every bit was considered and conceived, planned and planted. “Surely THIS you planted!” he would exclaim, pointing at three species with minute flowers and a small-leaved groundcover growing on a path which curved amongst grasses and ferns. “No,” I’d say, “we only mowed a path through the existing growth, which caused other plants to dominate in the more open habitat.” My mother once described it as a scarless world, and that sums up the way in which it was possible to gently expand the human presence without pushing nature aside.

Even the big lawn consists of grasses – and other greens! – that grow wild here, although other areas are kikuyu – a thuggish (exotic) grass which is by far the most popular lawn grass in most of South Africa. It was originally planted here back in the 40s and 50s as pasture for the mules used in the early days of timber-farming, and keeping it from spreading insidiously has been one of the on-going tasks in the garden. The picture above regular readers will recognise: the stand of Ouhout (literally ‘old wood’) trees – Leucosidea sericea – with a wild evergreen grass and other plants beneath it: all entirely the work of nature, with no more than the  judicious removal of dead wood every few years by us. And one of the most beautiful spots in the whole garden… for 12 months of the year! In the photo above that you can see the mixed growth along a low cutting that first gave me the theme for this post: self-sown tree-ferns are becoming fine specimens, and an assortment of wild flowers, grasses, ferns and shrubs partial to conditions here have made this their happy home – all with minimal interference by us.

In many areas velvety mosses have covered bare earth – either because nothing much grows there, or because we have consciously kept the ground clear to encourage them, such as in the Japanese Walk where seven years on there is now sufficiently shade on the ground for my vision to start becoming a reality…

But this is all about wildFLOWER Wednesday, so let’s see what is blooming…

The rustic fence at the main entrance from the dirt road frames a lovely composition in blue and yellow – the blues appearing paler on film than in reality. The blue featured recently in a post: it is Wahlenbergia undulata, known locally as a ‘Bluebell’ ; the yellow is Hawkweed (Taraxacum officinale, and officially an exotic weed, but I claim it as one of our loveliest wild flowers…) and another smaller yellow daisy – one of the ubiquitous yellow daisies that we so easily just dismiss as weeds – possibly one of the many Senecio species.

Small flowers abound, and many I have had great trouble trying to identify. The next two might or might not be species of Selago or Tetraselago; I tend to think not. It is frustrating, but does not detract from the subtle beauty of these late-summer bloomers with their heads of minute flowers, each only about 3mm across.

There is a white flower too, almost certainly the same species.

We have our own indigenous knotweed, or Persicaria, P. attenuata I think it is; it might not be as attractive as some of the species I have seen in English gardens, but it does have the added value of being used to treat venereal diseases… Doctrine of Signatures, perhaps??

Something much more dramatic. In the fading light (and shot by flash) I come upon Crocosmia aurea just breaking bud. I have never noticed it like this before.

Immediately I think of the stock description of our other native, Crocosmia paniculata:  “inflorescence zigzagging, each zigzag ending in a flower.” Can I still find paniculata in flower to show this, although one can also see it from the swelling seeds on the stalk? They flower a little earlier. Ah yes. Here it is.

On a walk I get to my hedgerow – a mixed planting, dense, forming a rough hedge, in honour of England, in memory of a specific walk in Gloucestershire some seven years ago… There is nothing remotely indigenous in this view…

Standen Walk (besides the inherent paradox in the words) I named after Philip Webb’s Arts & Crafts home in West Sussex, where I saw one of the most magnificent garden features of my entire 1995 pilgrimage: a long narrow walk with a shrub border on one side and on the other, beyond a low parapet wall, a long view over  a meadow and across a valley. You can see it on one of those 360 degree thingies over here. In miniature I have something similar in Standen Walk. And the plants all come from Europe, and North America, and the East… Yet I heard, coming from an equally exotic conifer, the screechy hiss of one of South Africa’s most iconic birds. I’d heard it there the previous day too. What was this lover of afromontane forest doing in an exotic conifer?

The Knysna Loerie – or Turaco as we are now encouraged  forced to call it – is an elegantly shaped and marked green bird, with bright red on its wings, pictured here in what is simply known as ‘Roberts’ – the bible of Southern African bird books. Like so many beautiful birds, its assorted calls are harsh, ugly. For years I hardly ever saw or even heard it in our gardens. Now, due to the many exotics here, it is resident. May I include it amongst the wild beauties in this post?

Was it after the heps of this rose in the hedgerow? Was it after the pyracantha berries below? Who knows. It was there, and it had not been there. I believe in the value of judicious planting of exotics. I rest my case.

I circle and flush the bird and  manage a shot. It is blurred, without detail, but the shape is unmistakeable…

And so, in the glow of a summer evening, we make our way home.

But wait. I have not yet showed you all my shots of Gladiolus densiflorus. It is after all my subject for Wildflower Wednesday. My first memory of it is of a tighly packed double row of almost grey flowers. It was in neatness that its beauty lay. Densiflorus is an apt name, and nowhere clearer than in the elegant spike of developing flowers.

I have never deliberately grown these in the garden, although I am planning to harvest seed this year. Like so many of the wildings, the flower is small (each about the size of a thumbnail), but more importantly: their season is fleeting and their charm increases tenfold when come across unexpectedly in their season. And so, as I often do throughout the year, on a walk I will ask myself: ‘I wonder if xyz is flowering yet?’ And watching out for it adds immeasurably to the pleasure of a walk… As does finding it.

OK. We were returning home in the glow of a summer evening, tra-la…

It is a good time to sit on the stoep – veranda – with a drink and watch the colour drain from the world, and then slowly from the sky. Besides which: on two occasions this week five very indigenous Woolly-necked Storks (I posted about them here) soared in in the gloaming and settled with utmost grace in our very exotic big bluegum tree…

DOWN THE FOREST DRIVE–A MEMORY FOR WFW

The Forest Drive runs down a valley in the Woodbush Reserve, starting high in the mountain and ending in the Lowveld. I remember riding it 50 years ago sitting on the roof-rack of my father’s Opel Record Caravan – my first memory of my mother’s vertigo where her children were concerned.

But Flea, my father’s caretaker and my adopted sister who helped me nurse my mother, had never been there. And as it is only a few kilometers from Sequoia, that is a shame. So at the end of February – high summer – we rectified that.

I think she enjoyed the trip…

Tall trees tower over one – but one also looks down on them due to the steepness of the terrain. And the verges are rich with plant life. Above is a plant which also grows on Sequoia, Scadoxus puniceus, in seed. It is also known as a Blood Lily and impressive enough to be on the cover of Elsa Pooley’s authoritive ‘A Field Guide to the Wild Flowers Kwazulu-Natal and the Eastern Region’. It stands among white Begonia dregei  which feature again in the photo below. I’ve written before of Eve Palmer and her wonderful identification guide to the Plectranthus clan. If I studied it I might be able to tell you the name of the beauty on the left… Another of the beautiful begonias is the bright orange B. sutherlandii which I intend growing in my new greenhouse – about which more soon – where I will be able to give it the frost-free conditions it demands. It is a beauty!

The delicate beauty of the white form of Bergenia dregei, which tends to hide in the deepest shadows against near vertical cuttings contrasts with the extrovert orange of the Sutherland Begonia.

Our old friend Crocosmia aurea, which I’ve posted about in a previous Wild Flower Wednesday post, was there, as was the ubiquitous but ever lovely local Bizzy Lizzy, Impatiens sylvicola.

All of these come to you courtesy of Wild Flower Wednesday, the fourth Wednesday of every month, and started by Gail of Clay and Limestone.

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.

BY THE SKIN OF MY TEETH…

By the skin of my teeth I make it – March week 2, that is. I think I’ve only once or twice not posted for a whole week and missed out on my ‘this week in my garden’ pic. But here I am, and I’ve all but managed to miss two weeks in a row. Not that I’ve taken NO pics, or not thought of the post I’d do. It has been year-end on Sequoia, and marks are due this coming week at school… The theme has been clear all along: autumn is in the air. It creeps up suddenly in mid Feb most years, the first colour in the leaves. This year it started even earlier. We’ve had an odd year, one of the wettest Januaries on record, followed by the driest February by far – usually our wettest month – and March remaining sunny. Perhaps that has caused thoughts of a shut-down in the trees. Be it as it may, everywhere there are subtle shades of red and yellow infusing the greens of summer. Some trees are showing full colour in some leaves. Autumn will blaze from mid April to mid May. But the joys on either side of this are welcome, and precious. Oh – the crocosmias in the photo above I am saving for Wednesday’s Wild Flower post…

MORE WILD FLOWERS FROM A SUNDAY WALK IN THE GARDENS

I said in my last post that I would have to do a follow-up on this plant! Crocosmia aurea,  flowers slightly later than C. paniculata and does well in both heavy shade and full sun; above they grow in full sun amongst flag irises and the  photo below was taken with flash in heavy shade.

 

One of many different Helichrysums (everlastings) that grow for us, I associate the tall, elegant, ghostly outline of H. mundtii with arriving on the farm at night from Johannesburg, and thinking as they loom up in the headlights that late summer has arrived.

They really are colourless, their grey felty texture against the neutral backdrop of the water – a position they chose themselves – being by far the most effective way to view them.

Another waterside plant is Kniphofia triangularis. This plant was moved from across the stream which feeds the dam into the Cottage Garden. It is slighter and more herbaceous than the typical South African choice, K. uvaria. 

Possibly our most noticeable wild flower, Hypericum revolutum can grow into a leggy, woody shrub of over 3m, but is easy to keep to proportions that work better in the garden. It flowers on and off for many months.

We’ll ask the ferns to modulate to a quieter theme. I have never got to grips with identifying the various ferns. There are thousands, and everything seems to happen in intermediates. Here they grow on a shady bank, a meter high road cutting.

Conostomium natalense is one of those wild plants that don’t quite make it into the garden; the flowers are just a little too small (about 5mm or 1/5in across), borne erratically, and the plant too insubstantial to make a statement. However one constantly notices it during its long flowering season in the wild parts of the garden, where it enjoys growing on the edge of paths up against grasses and other plants.

Smaller still is this flower, each perhaps 3mm across and borne in panicles which are quite dense around the new year, but by now are spaced out. It is one of those delightful plants which once noticed are worth taking a close look at. I think it is a Pentanisia species – but don’t quote me!

Growing close by is an even better example of a little flower I only really came to appreciate once I had photographed it in macro. It is, I am pretty certain, Nemesia albiflora and the flowers are so tiny that unless you stoop to study them, the blue veining is quite invisible.

I have yet to do justice with my camera to Rabdosia calycina. Of the mint family, the flowers are barely 1mm across, covered in minute hairs and with a bubbly texture as though one is aware of each cell that forms the flower. It is the ultimate look-closer flower!

There are many Senecias that flower from late summer through winter – some are substantial creepers, others are weedy herbs. This one, S. decurrens, always looks lovely against the water of the dam below the stone cottage – also known as The House that Jack Built.

Rumex sagittatus or creeping sorrel is another harbinger of autumn. It drapes itself across other plants, usually elegantly but sometimes thuggishly, and its chartreuse flowers quickly fade to papery reddish clusters that look more like seeds than flowers.

I’ve kept this for last, in the hope that inspiration will strike. I’ve searched through all my books, some twice. I thought I knew this flower, was surprised in fact that it didn’t feature in each of them. But nada. Its clusters of powder blue flowers are about 20mm or nearly an inch across, and it likes to thread through other plants near water, so that the flower panicles are spaced wide enough apart for the whole plant to make for a rather featureless photo. I suspect it is of the mint family, but will have to fetch a peace for closer scrutiny. I did not think, photographing it on Sunday afternoon, that identification might be a problem. Any ideas?

Later: “suspect it is of the mint family“… Well if only I’d picked a sprig then to examine… it is the source of the ubiquitous mint smell which you so often get having brushed through the undergrowth. I tasted it – like spearmint. I came back to my books and looked up Mentha… It is M.aquatica, flowering only in Feb-March, but a constant presence. How come I’d never made the connection? And then of course there is that marvellous source of confirmation -a Google Image search… so Mentha.aquatica it is!

FLOWERS BROUGHT IN FROM THE WILD ON THE FARM

How time flies! It is a month since I set aside some of these images.

(Sorry. I am obsessed this afternoon with mortality and the passing of time. Really, Frances! To refer to Twiggy as “a long ago willowy British model.” I mean she hit the planet only… what? Over 45 years ago? OMG. I better fetch a whisky. And here I’m trying to avoid mentioning the first autumn leaves are here again. Darn! There I go do it! I’ll make it a stiff one… No wonder mid-March and the sudden arrival AGAIN of autumn leaves in the summer heat has hit me like a sledge-hammer. 45 years, you say? I didn’t even realise I was that old…)

These are Crocosmia paniculata. I remember discovering unexpectedly a clump in full bloom in a pine plantation years ago (don’t think about it, Jack) and immediately making a note to bring them into the garden. It is so strange to find so bright a flower in heavy shade. And the leaves are so luminescently green. The first ones grow (and glow) above a fishbone pyracanthus in the Long Border. The second (I am slightly ashamed to admit) grow in a nondescript area which some might call a compost heap.

They are such distinguished plants – graceful and beautifully coloured and detailed. And like most bright reds, they don’t photograph too well on a digital camera; remember how some blue flowers were always mauve on Kodachrome, before they took my kodachrome away… (Don’t go there, Jack!)

This is Eucomis comosa. It is a particularly fine and robust example growing in an uncultivated area right in the middle of the garden (If you go to the aerial photos, in the elbow between the Beech Borders and Standen Walk. (Or the top right area between the red axis lines; this is where I want to move all my old-fashioned roses to – but I must mark this particular spot before I do any moving!) I was thrilled to see, when I went closer for the photo, that several of its off-spring were flowering around it.

We have several different species of Eucomis growing wild, and in addition we’ve a few improved varieties from which I’ve propagated successfully. But today I’m only looking at recent photos – which reminds me; after today’s walk I realise there must be a follow-up post – to include the orange Crocosmia aurea as well as several other endemic plants in bloom.

Dissotis canescens is also known as the Wild Tibouchina – those from sub-tropical areas will know these glorious flowering trees and shrubs. It is a perennial which grows in marshy areas (the background is the surface of my dam) and the combination of luminescent magenta flowers with rich brick-red calyxes is startlingly beautiful. It is past its prime here, but that is when I love it the most, when the brick-reds dominate.

I was caught by surprise by two clumps of this growing in the Long Border. What was it? And when did I plant it?  I knew it was indigenous – somehow – but I am baffled by it history, other than a vague memory of the same thing happening last year. (What, Alzheimers already, you say?) Research seems to indicate that it is Chlorophytum krookianum, closely related to the well-known  hen-and-chickens. Known as ‘Reach for the Sky’, its delicate panicles stand over 2m tall. Luckily it doesn’t gallop like the much more diminutive hen-and-chickens, or it would be a real thug! I strongly suspect that these were moved into the Long Border by Phineas or Frans, who found a clump in the veld. I know I didn’t plant them…

I think I’ve saved the best for last. I recently discovered in flower, quite out of season, one single plant in rows of Dierama seedlings in the nursery. Some years ago I planted seeds of white Dierama  or Angels Rods; some were from plants growing near mauve ones. These are the first ever flowers – and they are white with the subtlest tinges of mauve about them. I really look forward to next spring to see what they all look like!