Crossandra across the main road

Two days ago I screeched to a halt, made a U-turn and went back to investigate a few spots of soft orange along the national road which I had never noticed before. When I went back to photograph them early this morning it was still Wednesday somewhere in the world; important – as this is my contribution to Wildflower Wednesday, driven by the indomitable Gailforce…

I am pretty certain that what I found was a colony of Crossandra zuluensis, which I think ( but have not checked) I have seen flowering quite freely in the Haenertsburg Grasslands (about which, as I said in my previous post, I will still write extensively…) during spring. I don’t know them in late summer, but their flowering time is given as Sep-Mar. A goodly season, especially for such a beaute. It will find its way into my garden and my meadow.

As happens so often when you find a particularly lovely wild flower, there were several other interesting species in its vicinity. I searched around for a reason, found none. Unless perhaps this patch of ground had been disturbed in the not too terribly distant past – but why? This little pea flower (well, its not so little – over 3cm 1 inch across) always reminds me of a snail. Not just because of its spiralled shape, but because the individual flowers seem to lie just above the ground, seemingly attached to nothing in particular. It is, I suspect, Vigna unguiculata, the Wild Cow Pea, which I often find in the wild parts of my own garden. I rather like the combination of violet and orange. Do I have the energy to stage-manage such effortless spontaneity?

Then there were these fresh silver leaves, almost certainly belonging to one of the hundreds of helichrysums – our main provider of all shades of silver and grey on the mountain flora. They were particularly beautiful and I shall be watching them. And to round things off, unfortunately sleeping demurely in the still misty light of early morning, there was a whole group of starry yellow Hypoxis…

MAKE NATURE WORK!

Who works the hardest in my garden? Nature! That’s why we can manage (well, almost manage) and afford (ditto) 6 hectares (15 acres) of it…

Case in point: Nothing in this area – the overflow stream of Freddie’s Dam – was planted. Tree ferns germinate readily in vertical ground ‘cliffs’ like this and on the dam walls; over 80 thus in the last 30 years. And slap bang behind the dogs grows a wild calla lily – Zantedeschia aethiopica. A picture of another in flower anon. Ferns and grasses and little wild twiners are all self-sown. There is a small amount of path maintenance here, no more.

 Large parts of the garden are paths cut through the natural vegetation and often the only additional ‘gardening’ is the planting of trees. These paths develop their own ecology and are colonised by low-growing plants. One of these is an indigenous Alchemilla or Lady’s Mantle, seen below; it consoles me when I fail with the exotic Alchemilla mollis.

  Because of our benign mountain climate, natural colonisation happens easily – and unrulies are disciplined by the frosts. It was whilst looking for a path pic that I saw these clumps of leaves and identified the Ledebourias – I think L. cooperi – unfortunately trampled, but they survive and seed perfectly when prone! Notice the ferns colonising the shade beneath an old mother-pine.

 And not too far off, growing on the edge of the stream that feeds our dams, a calla. Or as we call them in Afrikaans: Pigs’ Ears!

 The flower below, which I bought and planted, is the well known Black-eyed Susan – Thunbergia alata. Traditionally it is a strong but soft orange with the dark eye which gives it its name, a gentle twiner which grows wild in many parts of South Africa including here – although I’ve only once seen one anywhere that was definitely wild. This softer yellow sport became available some 10 years ago and around the world the wonderful modern versions with burnt orange, rusty and other subtle shades of flower have of late become popular. I have a packet of seed waiting to be planted…

 So you can imagine my surprise some years ago when one of the first wildings I identified turned out to be a relative…

 Thunbergia natalensis is also called the Forest Bluebell, and its softest of blue flowers with a yellow throat grow on knee-high perennials in the shade. But when you take a closer look (lower flowers), especially at the balloon-like calyx, the family resemblance becomes clear.

St. John’s Worts the world over look remarkably similar: identical flower shapes and colours, similar leaf arrangements… We have two, one of which produces a fleeting spring show of thumb-nail-sized blooms on an equally diminutive plant, and the other which is one of the three main plants in our indigenous scrub. It is never as showy as the garden varieties, but provides a long season of good interest and is beloved by our local creatures, big and small. That is it below on the left, Hypericum revolutum, with whichever of the garden varieties it is we grow on the right. Both photographed yesterday.

Silene, or Campian,  is another of the international garden flowers that we have a wild version of on Sequoia. I have introduced it into the garden in places. It makes a striking almost-white highlight, but by later in the season its poor breeding shows, when it sprawls drunkenly across whatever is available and needs sobering up. Below is Silene undulata photographed in the wild, together with a garden Silene I first grew from seed 15 years ago which has been with us ever since, often in unexpected places. It was photographed up against the Ellensgate Garden where it currently makes a pleasing composition with two shades of Nicotiana alata and some miniature agapanthus. Sometimes the glorious deep pink (and the scent!) of the Bourbon rose ‘Mme Isaac Pereire’ is part of this composition. Today we need to be satisfied with the memory of its spent blooms.

 Sigh. I really should have swept the paving before signing my name to it…

Lastly, we grow wild the species form of that most popular of garden flowers, the Trailing Lobelia – Lobelia erinus. Although never as dense ad impressive as the hybridised versions, its tiny blue flowers act like a magnet in the vast expanse of the wild garden, bringing the photographer to his knees, and the dogs with their big clumsy feet running…

This post on the wild flowers with garden relatives that grow on Sequoia was inspired by Wildflower Wednesday, a garden-blogging-world-wide reminder once a month that flowers are not the creation of man… Thank you, Gail, of  Clay and Limestone for starting the push!