January in our False Bay garden

by Diana Studer

- gardening for biodiversity

in Cape Town, South Africa

Once deserves sympathy, twice is a BAD habit. Different finger this time. It has been a not gardening month. My Halloween mask face wasn't fit for walking among people - the downside of living in a sunny climate. Then I had to protect my finger, so stay out of the garden too.

Cut finger, again, but a different one

Sprekelia formosissima  began the month extravagantly. Now the pot is bunches of green leaves. For Through the Garden Gate with Sarah in Dorset.

Sprekelia formosissima

Tuberous begonia appreciates its new home with lush large leaves. There, we both remember to water it. Mulched with leftover rooibos tea, seems to be deterring chompers.

Tuberous begonia

We went to hear about the Noordhoek ponds. Threatened with a new road on the urban edge. Habitat for Western leopard toads when breeding. Commuters want, more roads. Difficult.

Noordhoek pond

Arson and plumes of smoke rising from those Noordhoek wetlands. With a first, an all women team of firefighters included.

Smoke from Noordhoek wetland fire

I check today's observations from Cape Town on iNaturalist each day which told me this wrapped and striped sweet dangling from a Coprosma leaf, is an ichneumonid wasp pupa.

Ichneumonid wasp pupa

Despite being 'dug out' our Plumbago has come back happily from the deep roots. Covered in sky blue flowers! For Gail at Clay and Limestone in Tennessee for her Wildflower Wednesday

Plumbago

One lonely Agapanthus flower. Lilac Plectranthus saccatus. Firesticks Euphorbia tirucalli now blazes above the owl's head.

January flowers

Plan B. I have been reading. January books

Louisa TREGER

The lodger

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Meh. Worthy intentions. But hiss and boo Victorian melodrama. Over there! Behind you! Was Dorothy Richardson really so pathetic? That cover - she was so excited about the independence of a bicycle - but imagine cycling in that dress!

Ruth THOMAS

Things to make and mend

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These women live real lives. I like that 'walk in your shoes' sort of story.

M. L. STEDMAN

The light between oceans

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A lighthouse keeper. People trying to choose which is the right thing to do. Every choice is devastating for someone. This one made my heart ache - and I am not a sucker for sob stories.

Light between oceans

Claire NORTH

84 K

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Dystopia, but, not so very far from today. That us and them divide, that can be shocking when I realise that I too see Them.

Louis De BERNIERES

So much life left over

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Going to a Ceylon tea plantation after the First World War. (I wonder what our life would have been if my mother had chosen Malaysia, not South Africa, when my father asked her?)

Mavis CHEEK

Yesterday's houses

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This one was an antidote to my Life Happens and made me laugh out loud. I can surely relate to the bliss of soaking in a hot bath - while the world goes away. Easy reading, but the heroine is feisty (until the last pages when she is battling poor rooks!) With the Tired Woman's Epitaph

Of life and bathtubs

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