This winter has definitely convinced me
- I am a summer girl! The last 4 weekends prior to this have been
cold and rainy, forcing me to spend most of my time indoors. I say
most of my time because when the rain backed off to a light drizzle I
would dash outside to pull a few weeds and take quick garden tour. My
children made me laugh “ Come inside Mom you will catch cold!” I
thought it was Mothers that intoned that phrase. But I can't, I work
5½ days a week and the weekend is the only time to restore my soul.
I know we need the rain and I do enjoy
it, I just wish it would confine itself to weekdays or night time, if
it must rain on weekends. We have had over 100mm of rain this month
and I am sure most of it fell on weekends. I may complain about the
heat occasionally in summer as well as the lack of rain, but it
definitely gives me more time to spend outdoors, I feel like a caged
lion, pacing up and down in front our sliding door waiting for a gap
in the clouds so that I can head outside.
Fortunately this past Sunday was lovely
and sunny, so I went on the rampage. The ivy covering our back wall
in our bedroom garden had grown top heavy and fallen away from the
wall, so that was cut back severely, leaving a rather bare wall. It
had damaged a few shrubs when it fell over, but since they were
exotics I didn't mind. So out went the Nandina domestica and the
Plumera rubra and in their place I have planted the following:
Metalasia muricata
Agathosma capensis
Acmadenia heterophylla
Pelargonium crispum
Very bare walls after removing the Ivy
I will post more about these later when
they have settled in and look like they will survive – they were
rather pot bound so I am not sure of their chances.
In our back garden my beautiful
Coleonema had died, so out it came too. I also had a volunteer white
stinkwood that had grown too close to the wall, these trees can get
rather large so I had no choice but to remove it. Ripping out all
these plants made the garden feel rather bare but at least I have
some stalwarts that can always be relied on. Polygala myrtifolia also
known as September bush is one of these.
The September bush, a large shrub or
small tree widespread in South Africa and found in a variety of
growing conditions. It does well in full sun or semi shade. It grows
in the Western Cape where we have winter rainfall as well as in the
eastern parts of the country where they have mostly summer rains.
This highly adaptable plant thrives in forests, grasslands and can
even be found on sand dunes. In my garden it flowers almost all year
round, but puts on an especially dazzling display in spring. The
flowers in varying shades of mauve, purple and pink and occasionally
white are clustered at the tips of branches. They resemble pea
flowers but have a distinct tufted keel.
Beautiful flower showing off the fuzzy keel
One of the reasons I fell in love with
this house 6 years ago, was the large almost 4 metre high Polygala in
the backyard. Sadly it had been planted too close to the wall,
causing it to grow skew and eventually fall over. It is fortunately
one of those pioneer plants that self seeds with ease and I now have
about 6 specimens of varying size around the garden.
In it's prime - I do miss it.
Polygala myrtifolia is great for
attracting wildlife. In my garden there are always carpenter bees
buzzing around the flowers and before my large tree fell down it
attracted many double collared sunbirds and a family of white eyes.
