Karoo aloes with snow and Cape canaries

by Diana Studer

- gardening for biodiversity

in Cape Town, South Africa

Winter magic in the Western Cape is flaming spires of aloe against snowcapped mountains. We visited the the Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden when we lived in Porterville. About 100 kilometres from us inland to Worcester, tucked between the Western Cape mountains. Still within the winter rainfall mediterranean climate, but drier and hotter / colder than fynbos or renosterveld. These succulents are dormant in the long hot summer, and happily flower in winter rain.

Aloes with snow in July 2008

In South Africa the ±155 species of aloe can be found in almost all vegetation types, from the arid to semi-arid regions of the Karoo, the winter rainfall fynbos region, succulent thickets, grassland and savanna, and even in comparatively high-rainfall forests.

Karoo Desert NBG looking towards the Hex River Mountains

December 2011 Veld & Flora has an article by Werner Voigt on the history of the Karoo NBG. The garden was established in 1921. In 1945 Swiss curator Jacques Thudichum worked with Louis Pieterse to move the plant collection from near Matjiesfontein to Worcester. The garden was opened in 1948 when Jan Smuts said – ‘The human spirit craves for something more. It requires spiritual nourishment and here it is in the Karoo Garden.’ In 2001 the word Desert was added to the formal name, to explain the word Karoo (place of great thirst) to international visitors.

Left Tylecodon paniculatus
Top right Oxalis
Below right Euphorbia mauritanica
July 2010

Lime green flowers on Euphorbia mauritanica were lit up in Worcester, back home in our garden there is promise in the burgeoning leaf tips, but not even buds yet. In a spoonful of rock chips a shell-pink Oxalis found a tiny home. Large luminous apple-green leaves on the botterboom, Tylecodon paniculatus. I have a tiny plant in our garden now and the snails devour the leaves almost as fast as they grow!! I am scattering wood ash around the plant to deter them.

Worcester aloe July 2012

The Worcester aloes flowers shade from olive green thru buttery yellows to a subtle orange. July 2010 to the aloes and November 2010 to the birds of the Karoo.

Cape canaries on hawkweed

in our Porterville garden January 2012

Cape canary

Take time to look. Give yourself a chance to see the wildlife that is in your garden. Stop and smell the roses. I took a photo of a rose, walked past a few minutes later, and thought, what’s that green smudge on my photo? A preying mantis was halfway thru eating a honey bee. Later still, just the discarded ‘bones’. --- If I don’t look, is there biodiversity? (Yes, but, I won’t notice it).

Cape canaries on hawkweed

Cape canaries

When I glanced out of the Porterville laundry window, I saw an entire flock, a horde, of Cape canaries Serinus canicollis. Busily harvesting the puffballs on the hawkweed! Hawkweed is closely related to dandelions. Worldwide there are thousands of species of Hieracium. The buttery yellow fringed delight of the petals has faded into the bee’s memory of November. I had been planning to cut back the effusive bunches of dead flower stems. The birds made me grateful I hadn't got around to it.

Hawkweed blooming in November

Hawkweed seedheads in January

Hawkweed is seen simply as a weed. Ours certainly planted itself and was happy with our climate and soil. Garden-worthy flowers for me and food for the bees. Seeds for the Cape canary. I need to look out for hawkweed in our False Bay garden.

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Pictures by Diana and Jürg Studer

of Elephant's Eye on False Bay

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