EASTERN CAPE WILD FLOWERS

Visitors from all over the world flock to the Western Cape every year to see the beautiful spectacle of wild flowers that bloom along the west coast and adjacent inland areas after the spring rains. We can emulate this a little by planting African Daisy seeds in our gardens elsewhere in the country. So, this one is cheating a little for, although they are indigenous to this country, they are not strictly speaking found growing in the wild in the Eastern Cape:

I have specially chosen this view of them – their beauty is evident – to illustrate these lovely plants in different stages, from the attractive flower heads to the dried seeds (see top right in the photograph) and the bare remains where the paper thin seeds have already been blown away in the wind.

Several of our wild flowers are bulbs – one might miss the plants until they flower – yet they are generally worth looking out for, like this Gladiolus dalenii:

The Giant Candelabra Lily is always a pleasure to see too:

There are so many aloes in bloom now. This Aloe ferox in my garden provides an enormous amount of pleasure in its own right, as well as in terms of the birds it attracts:

Then there are some colourful indigenous trees, such as the Cape Chestnut:

Many of these have been planted as street trees in our town and I have a beautiful specimen in our garden. Indigenous trees that self-seed themselves so easy here are the Pompon trees:

Soon the scarlet Erythrinas will be blooming; the pale pink flowers of the Crassula ovata are beginning to make a show; the yellow Canary Creeper flowers are still vying with the burnt orange of the Cape Honeysuckle; and blue Plumbago blossoms are peeping out here and there.