Yesterday was a beautiful day in my garden: the sun was shining brightly, picking out the different hues of green as well as highlighting the yellowing leaves of the Cape Chestnut as well as some of the leaves falling from the Kei Apple. This picture was taken before the lawn was mowed:
As I was going up the garden steps near that green water storage tank you can see in the distance, I noticed that there were several Crocosmia plants threading their way through a tangle of weeds, Canary Creeper and wild grass that has grown up since my last attempt to keep the jungle at bay in December. These must have arrived courtesy of the birds, for I have not planted them there – and they are just coming into bloom. As you will soon see, it is fortunate that I weeded around them when I did:
Why was I fortunate? Well, while the gardener was trimming the hedge outside the kitchen, he disturbed a Night Adder (Causus rhombeatus) entwined in the Tecoma capensis. The snake moved off rapidly and disappeared in a pile of junk in the back garden. Photo opportunity lost. Oh well. He called us later as the adder had now moved from there and was about to disappear between the Crocosmia into the aforementioned tangle! Night Adders (actually more active during the day) are known to eat frogs. Their venom is cytotoxic and so (for adults at least) their bite is not necessarily that serious, apart from causing pain and swelling. That may be so, but it is going to be a while before I again tackle the weeds in that part of the garden:
Much more benign is the brightly coloured orange bracket fungi that caught my attention growing out of the stem of an aloe elsewhere in the garden:
As I rounded the corner to enter the kitchen from those steps I mentioned, I noticed this hornet’s nest built under the outer window sill of the downstairs bathroom. It was a case of look, snap and move on:
Something Over Tea 