FINDING A FLOWER

It hasn’t rained for weeks. The temperature yesterday peaked at 35℃. All the bird baths in my garden are dry this morning. The lawn, which looked beautiful when freshly mown on Sunday feels crunchy underfoot. The glorious flowers of the Gladiolus dalenii have shrivelled and fallen off; the bright yellow nasturtiums that graced our front steps have turned up their toes … I went outside just now to find a flower – and had to go hunting! I began at our front path, where I had seen a splash of red. It turned out to be a Christ Thorn (Euphorbia milii).

There is a belief that the Crown of Thorns worn by Jesus during the crucifixion was made from the branches of this plant. As a result, this plant has been endowed with symbolic significance, representing sacrifice, redemption, and the enduring strength of faith. However that may be, it is a resilient plant that thrives in our hot, rather arid environment.

On the indigenous front, we have several self-sown Grewia occidentalis shrubs growing in our garden.

Happily, this plant is also drought-hardy and so thrives in our garden – no wonder I have allowed it to grow more or less wherever it wishes to! The attractive purple star-shaped flowers are followed by distinctive four-lobed fruits – giving rise to the common name of Cross-berry. When ripe, the fruits are feasted on by a variety of birds such as Black-eyed Bulbuls, Speckled Mousebirds and Black-collared Barbets. You can see a green fruit next to the flower in the above picture.

Enough of crosses. Another firmly drought-resistant plant surviving in my garden is the very attractive Sea Lavender, also known as Statice or Limonium.

Apparently, these flowers symbolize success, beauty, sympathy, and remembrance and can be interpreted as missing someone for whom you care deeply. I doubt whether many of us understand the ‘language’ of flowers in the way the Victorians did, so that particular message may be wasted!

Not wasted is the wash of pink beauty filling many of our street islands and – at last beginning to bloom in our garden – created by the spectacular blooms of the Cape Chestnut trees.

Then there is the wonderfully blue Plumbago auriculata which is blooming all over the countryside at this time of the year, as well as in our garden.

I began with a splash of red and will end with a similar splash, only this one comes from the Pelargonium inquinans growing next to our swimming pool.

SPRING 2024

November seems to be awfully late to be celebrating spring in our garden. Yet, winter has been reluctant to leave, then the warmer temperatures crept in only to be knocked back by cooler weather, which is at last giving way to the more usual weather we enjoy at this time of the year. Spring it certainly is after a few days of really good, soft rain that will do wonders not only for the garden but for the veld too. I begin with the first of the plumbago flowers that are beginning to bloom around the garden:

The indigenous scarlet pelargonium (Pelargonium inquinans) is also covered with blossoms:

Look at the different hues of green shown by the trees behind our swimming pool:

The Van Staden’s River Daisy (Osteospermum ecklonis) which originated on my parents’ farm is looking pretty:

While I have seen a number of young birds, it is also pleasing to see the untidy nest of a hadeda ibis in our back garden:

A weaver has also built a nest in another tree – I have not seen much activity around it lately though, so I imagine it hasn’t met with approval from his partner and has been abandoned:

SIX INDIGENOUS FLOWERS BLOOMING

Right now, the Cape Honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis) is brightening up the winter landscape with its bright orange tubular flowers. The weavers and orioles tend to bite the flowers off at the base in order to reach the nectar, whilst the Greater Double-collared Sunbird obligingly sucks it up through the trumpet-shaped petals. We have a hedge of it growing outside our kitchen, from where I can watch birds and insects galore visiting the flowers.

We also have a thick hedge of Crassula ovata (Jade Plant) next to our pool. At this time of the year the flowers attract birds and even bees. From about June until August, we can enjoy the masses of sweetly scented, pretty pale-pink, star-shaped flowers in tight rounded bunches.

The beautiful pink flowers of the Forest Hibiscus (Hibiscus pedunculatus) are over now until the arrival of the warmer weather. I love seeing the sun shining through the delicate petals as these plants grow in a shaded part of my garden.

Then, of course, I must show off this beautiful Gazania which blossomed next to our patio until only a few weeks ago.

By now regular readers are familiar with the Plumbago growing in our garden. I never tire of it.

This one grows in a garden in town. The beautiful Strelitzia reginae, also known as the Bird-of-Paradise flower is currently in bloom. The large clump growing on the verge opposite my back gate seldom blooms for it is regularly chomped by passing members of the Urban Herd.

RANDOM PICTURES II

It is a while since I last showed a completely random set of pictures from my archives. Well, not really: because today is the 12th of the month, I searched for files which had the number 12 in their titles (I tend to file pictures by date). I begin with a close-up view of Cape Figs (Ficus sur). These used to grow in the part of our garden that we sub-divided when our eldest wished to build a home. It has subsequently been sold and our new neighbours got rid of the tree soon after they moved in:

While on trees, here is a view of the tall trunk of a conifer growing in the Newlands Forest in Cape Town:

Closer to home is a Plumbago flower in my garden:

This is an abandoned mud wasp nest clinging to the brick wall near our front door:

During one of our visits to the Mountain Zebra National Park, the Cape Buntings were common visitors in the rest camp:

Lastly, is this close up of an elephant’s eye taken during a visit to the Addo Elephant National Park:

This selection of pictures gladdens my heart as the late afternoon winter chill begins to seep into our home.

HOW MY GARDEN GROWS

The bed needs weeding – and that will get done – yet I am pleased to see how good the recent rain has been for these daisy bushes I planted a while ago outside our kitchen. There are six different colours and it is my hope that they will spread out in due course and ‘flow’ into each other to create a beautiful carpet.

I mentioned the other day that we will soon be enjoying the blue flowers of the Plumbago. They started coming out this week.

Also in the blue range are these sage flowers. This plant has not flowered for two years so I am thrilled with its response to the rain.

Still on the blue theme – and another plant that has soaked up the rain and responded with an abundance of flowers – is the Yesterday-Today- Tomorrow (Brunfelsia pauciflora) growing outside our lounge window. It was given to us as a tiny plant in memory of my mother-in-law and has struggled to survive during the last long period of drought. Now we can enjoy its lovely scent, particularly in the early evening after a warm day.

Rounding off the range of blues is this clump of sea lavender – also known as statice or limonium. It has proved to be very drought resistant and the cut flowers remain looking beautiful long after the ones on the plant have lost their colour.

To break the mould is this scarlet pelargonium. I broke off a stem of a plant growing in my son’s garden when we left his house for the last time ahead of him moving to Glasgow. In only a few months it has grown tall and strong and seldom seems to be sans a flower or two – a wonderful reminder.