Our New Garden Pond

April and May brought me two essentials for gardening – rain and lots of public holidays!

The first early rains in April allowed me to fulfill my New Year garden plans. Those of you that follow Fer's Garden in Japan will remember his Carnival and all the great ideas we had for our gardens.

My dream was to build a second pond in the garden. After the first early rains in April the ground was a little softer - allowing us to dig.

The next few public holidays gave us time to cart all the rocks to the back garden - lots of aching muscles after that.

Hard to see in in the photo's but we have a little river bed leading from the old pond into the new one. We have a lot of pots in the bottom of the pond with aquatic plants. I am a little frustrated that I couldn't find any indigenous aquatics at our local nurseries - I gave up after visiting at least five different nurseries. A friend came to the rescue with our local Waterblommetjies (Aponogeton distachyos) and Vallisneria. I have planted Cape thatching reed, Arum lilies ( Zantedeschia aethiopica), ferns (Rumorha adiantiformis )and Aristea major around the pond. On the drier ledge near the pool paving I have Crassula falax, Crassula coccinea and Ficinia indica.

It still looks rather bare but I am sure that in a few months it will all be lush and green.

Hidden Treasure

This blog is essentially about transforming an old established garden filled with exotics into one that boasts only plants from South Africa and more specifically from the Western Cape.

For various reasons this transformation will take place over a number of years. One of these reasons is that a garden makeover takes time and money, both of which are in short supply. Another is that I hope that some of the existing plants will provide protection and shelter for the new plants while they try to establish themselves. Finally I spend hours buried in books and the internet trying to decide on the most suitable plant for each area. With approximately 8500 different plant species in the Cape Floral Region this is no easy choice.

I have been waiting for autumn to trim back a very overgrown hibiscus and coprosma in our front garden. Once cleared I will have room for planting some new trees in winter. On the weekend hubby and I armed with hedge clippers and bow-saw attacked the targeted shrubs. After a few hours in the baking sun we had a huge pile of branches. We retired for a well deserved drink and left the clearing up for another day. Next day while I was back in the office hubby came home to finish cleaning up. When everything was cleared away he noticed a tree that had been growing in the midst of these two shrubs. I couldn't wait to get home to identify it, hoping all the time it would be something indigenous that I could save.

Identifying trees is not easy, There were no flowers so I studied the leaves. are they simple or compound? Are they opposite or alternate? Are the margins toothed or smooth? All of these answers still leave you with thousands of possibilities. The tree has grown quite tall with no branches near the bottom. The other shrubs had totally encircled it and so the only place to grow was up. Finally I spotted a small fruit. Out came the gardening books – with each possibility I consulted the internet for further information. After more than an hour I thought I had it, but I wasn't totally sure. Trouble was the fruit I had picked was closed – silly me hadn't opened it. I called hubby over to confirm my guess. Why don't you open the fruit and then you'll know? Voila! Opening the fruit solved the mystery- I have a wild peach. Kiggelaria Africana. I couldn't believe my luck, this was one of the. trees on my shortlist of possibles to plant. Now I have an established tree that just needs to be nurtured, it has suffered a bit of damage to some branches by chafing up against the other shrubs. I am sure with the coming winter rains and the space it now has it will flourish.

Kiggelaria Africana

Evergreen tree to about 11m and spreading almost equally. It can reach almost 20m in favourable conditions. Low branching with a non aggressive root system. Mine has branched quite high up due to its restrained growing conditions. The bark is smooth when young becoming rougher with age.

The wild peach carries bell shaped flowers with male and female flowers on separate trees. The fruit is small, approx 15mm diameter on my tree, round rough and greeny yellow. When ripe it splits open in four parts revealing black seeds covered in a bright orange – red sticky covering. A wide variety of birds including robins , mousebirds and white-eyes love this fruit. It is also host to the caterpillars of Acraea butterflies. These in turn attract cuckoos.

Kiggelaria africana grows in a wide variety of habitats and is found from the Western Cape through to Kenya.

FISH TALES

 The fish were nibbling 

 no sucking

 no, I don't know - they were tickling her toes.

 Feeding frenzy.

 The terrible two came to investigate

 They are fascinated by the fish

 and the fish like to torment them

 They swim about under their noses

But luckily they are not very good fishermen

SIZZLING SUMMER

While the many parts of the world are experiencing extreme weather. I am happy to report that in the Western Cape all is normal. The southeaster blows more days than not, the sun shines every day and the temperature is in the early to mid thirties. (Celsius) In my part of the Cape this means hot dry gale force winds have been battering my garden since early December. Although this is routine for this time of the year it doesn’t make it pleasant.

I have had to break my no water rule, as my front garden only established in April 2010 was just crying for water. I have specifically chosen water wise plants that once established will survive our harsh summers, but at the moment some are still too young to endure the daily onslaught of sun and wind. I believe the key to developing strong drought resistant plants is to encourage strong root growth and so if I do water them it is only once a week or even less but then they get a good long soak down at the roots.

Although many plants have taken a battering from the harsh conditions I definitely have some drought tolerant stars

Indigofera jucunda

Gazania rigens

Bulbinella frutescens

Orphium frutescens

I enjoy summer as we get to swim and braai (barbecue) a lot, but by February I have to admit I start looking forward to autumn. Autumn brings relief from the constant wind and the temperatures become more bearable. April is also the best time to plant new plants. As my veggie blogging friends examine seed catalogues I find myself looking for bulbs and studying reference books and the net to find new plants to add to any available space in the garden. 

Since I cant do much in the garden we have taken the opportunity to revisit Botanical Gardens and Nature Reserves. In mid January we visited the Harold Porter Botanical Gardens. The pictures will tell the rest.....

Fynbos looks dead boring from a distance, you have to walk in it to appreciate the beauty

Bright red Crassula coccinea

Ericas showing off their dainty beauty

This stream has been colored by the fynbos.

My Garden Plans for 2011

This one is especially for Fer’s carnival. See mygardeninjapan.

I have great plans / dreams for my garden for 2011. Maybe with a little advice and encouragement from my blogging friends, I will be able to make my dreams a reality.

We get mostly winter rainfall and for the past few years I have been really upset about all the water going down the drain. In summer when it is really dry I keep wishing we had some of that precious water. The first thought was to install rainwater tanks, but they are ugly and expensive as well.

So I came up with the great idea of building a river bed and leading it into a pond. The rainwater can be led from the gutter into the river bed and then into the pond. If the pond gets too full I have planned a bog area. We have a lot of bulbs that grow in temporary winter ponds and then like to be totally dry in the summer.

We plan to do this in our back garden where we already have a small pond that can be incorporated into the design. If this one works out well then I would like to do the same in the front garden – but don’t tell my husband – he is already groaning about the amount of work ahead.

On Sunday we went to the Harold Porter Gardens in Betty’s Bay to get some ideas. The pic below gives an idea of what I trying to create.

This is the area I have to work with.

The area in the shade behind the blue pipe will remain grass. The area in the sun extending towards the pool will become bog and pond. The river will run down on the left and fall into the pool somewhere after the white pole – old wash line post that will finally be removed.

Same thing just from the opposite side. The existing pond is in the back ground. The rainwater pipe will be led along the back wall, which will hopefully be hidden  soon by a few young trees and shrubs that were planted a few month’s ago. 

Hubby contemplating the work ahead.

So quite a big task ahead, all the help, advice and encouragement will be appreciated.

The Dating Game

I am one of those people that believe every cloud has a silver lining and you must grab opportunities with both hands.

In February 2010 hubby was generously helping trim some overgrown shrubs in our front garden. Somehow he managed to twist his neck and probably due to a car accident 3 years ago he ended up crushing the disc between the 5^th and 6^th vertebrae. That resulted in an operation to fuse the 2 vertebrae and having to wear a neck brace for six weeks.

Problem: What to do with an ugly patch of tar outside your back door and a husband that can’t sit still

Solution: You hire 2 willing helpers and you get hubby to supervise. Remove the offending tar, build some curvy walls, bring in loads of compost and soil and voila you have a veggie patch.

Since then we have added some pavers on the pathway and have planted wonder lawn, pennyroyal, oreganum and felicias in between. The ever present alyssum have made themselves at home too.

We have had some disasters in the patch like the lettuce and rocket bolting, the strawberries dying and the cauliflower not getting heads.

But we have also enjoyed quite a few meals with cherry tomatoes, lettuce and swiss chard

At the moment we have zucchini and butternut growing. Being the novice gardeners that we are, we couldn’t understand why the butternuts would grow to about 5cm and then die. Luckily Mark my favourite veggie/cooking blogger from the UK soon put us right.

Apparently our butternuts needed some help in the bedroom area and so started the dating game. Every morning I dash outside and look for male and female flowers so that I can hand pollinate them. Some mornings I am lucky and there are equal amounts of males and females and then everyone is happy, and other days I am not so fortunate and someone becomes the proverbial wallflower. Not sure I am doing it right but I pretty much destroy the male in order to pollinate the female – it seems a little like the praying mantis who bites off her suitors head after he has fulfilled his purpose. I wonder if the human race wouldn’t turn out better if we girls got something like that going. Just kidding guys!

Why I Garden

I think gardening is in my genes. My great grandfather was curator of the Durban botanical gardens and later became a nurseryman. My grandparents had a child’s dream garden, lots of lush green lawn to play on, great trees to climb in, lots of places for hide and seek and always plenty of mangoes, pawpaws and litchis ready for picking.

My father too loved his garden and more often than not he would come back from his morning walk nursing a cutting kindly snipped by a friendly neighbour.

But I think to me gardening is more than just creating a beautiful picture. To me it is about trying to preserve our natural beauty.

I have always loved walking on wild untouched tracts of land hoping to and always finding a shrub or flower I hadn’t seen before, then the botanist in me would rush back home and dig out the gardening books and try to identify it.

It saddens me to see what we have done to our beautiful planet. Even with all the Green movements I think most people are too busy to live really eco conscious lives.

Gardening helps to absolve some of the guilt I feel about the destruction of our earth.

If I can restore just one little space with what nature intended then I feel I have taken a step in the right direction.

Regrettably my garden will never make the front page of a garden magazine, but at least I know I have done no harm – I have not sprayed herbicides, pesticides and fungicides, I have not used chemical fertilizers. Occasionally my plants look rather sad when they have been attacked by some or other insect or disease but they generally bounce back and hopefully next season they will be stronger

Writing this set me thinking about the Hippocratic oath and one phrase stands out – “first do no harm” So I have borrowed a little and written my own.

 I swear by Hegemone, the goddess of plants, and the Horae, the goddesses of the seasons, to keep according to my ability and my judgment, the following Oath and agreement:

I will consider dear to me all that is natural, and will strive to preserve as much of nature as humanly possible. As my parents have taught me this art so too I promise to teach my children.

I will follow routines for the good of my plants and the earth according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anything.

I will not poison, pollute or contaminate the earth, but will garden in accordance with the laws of nature.

I will preserve the purity of my life and my environment.

I promise to restore what those before me have destroyed.

I will harvest only enough for my needs and will leave sufficient to feed god’s creatures and ample seed to allow plants to multiply.

If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I ignore it, may the opposite be my lot.

 I guess if I am to honour my oath I will have to find another way to deal with the snails and stop killing the little horrors!

BULBINE FRUTESCENS

STALKED BULBINE

DESCRIPTION: This clump forming succulent perennial is a must have for almost any South African garden. It makes an ideal ground cover for dry sunny areas. It bears beautiful orange or yellow star shaped flowers with prominent yellow stamens. The flowers appear almost all year round except for a few months in winter. When broken, the leaves ooze a gel that helps soothe insect bites and stings and quickly stops bleeding from cuts and scrapes. It is also useful for treating eczema and soothing chapped lips.

DISTRIBUTION: Widespread in SA, it is found along the coast from Namibia spreading down to the Peninsula and extending along the south and east coast and inland as far as Mpumulanga.

CULTIVATION: Grows easily in any sunny spot. It produces fewer flowers if planted in light shade. It grows from seed and cuttings, but is easiest by division of the rhizomes. Although it appreciates the addition of compost it does well in poor sandy soils. Bulbine is a water wise plant, tolerating long periods of drought.