My life has been inspired by mountains. I was born in Camps Bay – that picture postcard view everyone recognises. The Atlantic Ocean stretched away with the Cape to Rio yachts sailing to South America, or the SA Agulhas heading South to Antarctica. As a child our family home was at the bottom of Lion’s Head, beneath the Atlantic end of Table Mountain with the cable station. The chain of mountains stretches away along the Twelve Apostles to a hidden Hout Bay.
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| Aragon looking to Paradise and Roses |
The Swiss interludes shocked me. Expecting again the picture postcard cliché of snowy Alps – instead I found rolling hills. The Hausberg of Zurich is the Uetliberg – but, but – that’s just a hill, like Signal Hill!
We decided to return to Camps Bay, to build a house on that slope I had looked across at as a child. At a lonely A-frame house with a tall slate roof – which became our neighbour in the street below. We lived halfway up the Twelve Apostles, where grey winter days enfolded us in clouds and fog, and in the summer the Southeaster gleefully ripped off a roof or two.
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| Aragon with the sun highlighting garlic buchu beyond her head |
Life is what happens; we sold the Position Position Position. We turned to a large garden in the country looking up to the Elephant’s Eye. Now in limbo, as the Porterville house is for sale – we look to the False Bay garden, where we will have glimpses of mountain. Enough for my soul to breathe.
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| Inspire at Paradise and Roses |
Federal Twist asked 'Where do gardens come from?' inspiring my June choice. Knoffel buchu, garlic buchu, Agathosma apiculata is all about the evocative smell. Returning me to school holidays. Once the air was filled with that distinctive smell, we knew Riversdale, with her Sleeping Beauty mountain, was just over the next rolling hill!
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| Knoffel buchu in our garden |
This is not a showy plant, but I hadn’t realised quite how tall it would grow. Tiny deep green leaves – this plant is about a delicious smell of garlic when you brush up against it. The flowers are a haze of tiny white feathers, supporting a layer of wildlife.
It occurs naturally on coastal dunes and grows in clays, on granite as well as limestone soils from Riversdale to Bredasdorp. It belongs to the Rutaceae, commonly known as the citrus family. Prune once the bush becomes untidy - from PlantZAfrica
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| Garlic buchu macro in a Mason jar technique |
Almost all the plants of the fynbos are fragrant. If you live, or holiday, in chaparral, maquis, matorral or fynbos – you will have your own evocative smell that brings back memories.
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| Agathosma apiculata, Plectranthus madagascariensis, Tecoma capensis Bulbine frutescens, Grewia occidentalis (Searsia crenata has TINY flowers = Six) for False Bay in Dozen for Diana) |
(Bring us a June plant? Leave a link to my post from your post)
Beth in Wisconsin of PlantPostings brings Viburnum - ‘inner florets were just breaking bud and sporting a soft peach tint’.
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| Agathosma apiculata, Searsia crenata, Grewia occidentalis Plectranthus madagascariensis, Bulbine frutescens, Tecoma capensis |
Buchu and scented pelargoniums are cultivated to harvest the volatile oils for the food industry. Could I use it as a culinary herb?
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| Chocolat and Elephant's Eye by Jurg |
It’s enough to make a cat laugh, my father used to say. Chocolat certainly mutters happily, and gives DEEP sighs of contentment in the evening by the fire’s glow. ‘Isn't it deluverly to be warm, and comfortable, and safe with me family! Sigh …’
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| Looking from Groot Winterhoek back to Table Mountain 2 hours drive away by Jurg |
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| Lush cottage garden waiting for us on False Bay Taken when we visited for a photo op in March |
Looking back to Table Mountain. We will look from Cape Town one day to the snowy mountains we now call home.
Pictures by Diana and Jurg
text by Diana Studer
(on Google Plus)
AKA Diana of Elephant's Eye (on False Bay)
- wildlife gardening in Porterville,
near Cape Town in South Africa
(If you mouse over teal blue text,
it turns seaweed red.Those are my links.)
text by Diana Studer
(on Google Plus)
AKA Diana of Elephant's Eye (on False Bay)
- wildlife gardening in Porterville,
near Cape Town in South Africa
(If you mouse over teal blue text,
it turns seaweed red.Those are my links.)
