Our False Bay garden in June

 

by Diana Studer 

- gardening for biodiversity 

 in Cape Town, South Africa 

Cape Town has remembered how to winter. Cold down to single digits overnight, Zöe sleeps on the hearth. 

Step Through the Garden Gate Down by the Sea with Sarah in Dorset. Focusing on the orange and red flowers on my Karoo Koppie, inspired by Autumn Fire. We had normal June rain, but concentrated across the last 10 days. 

Lachenalia bulbifera

Lachenalia bulbifera rich cherry red flowers embellished with vivid colours at the tips of the petals. Big lush spotted leaves unlike other lachenalias.

Lachenalia bulbifera

Cotyledon orbiculata (with grey finger leaves) muted terracotta trumpets popular with bees and sunbirds.

Cotyledon orbiculata 

Euphorbia tirucalli finally gaining height and glowing orange.

Euphorbia tirucalli

Lockdown for two weeks till 11th July. Now battling the Delta variant. Cautiously optimistic that we are approaching the peak. South Africa found the Beta variant (which caused our second wave, especially in Cape Town). We find the variants because we have four virology labs in our city, two at the Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch, two more at Tygerberg and Groote Schuur hospitals where medical staff are trained. My library is closed. Restaurants may only serve takeaways, but other businesses are open. No gatherings allowed beyond your household bubble (group hikes cancelled but beaches and mountain trails are open) Vaccination registration is open for over fifties. 

Aloe ferox buds

It is all a bit daunting - so glad my sister and I got our golden walks at Kirstenbosch!

Aloe ferox has a candelabra of buds starting to open. 

Aloe marlothii still fresh

By special request of the non-blogging Ungardener we have moved to a minimal text only header. Better for my 1 in 3 readers on mobile! My banner photo of the waves lapping on the shore has washed out to sea. When I need techie help for Blogger / blogspot I turn to Peggy K. I asked her how to get rid of the Subscribe button up top, since that option to subscribe to a blog post via email is no longer supported? Peggy wrote Bloggers a detailed post, step by step, with screenshots. I returned to her answer to clear the banner photo. 

(Experimenting with copy as plain text to see what happens to my formatting this week. Had to add italics and links again. Small fight with wall of text HTML code)

Aloe marlothii flowers

Aloe marlothii goes from banana buds to vivid orange stamens and happy bees with packed orange saddlebags.

Bee on Aloe marlothii

Bee on Aloe marlothii

Two new plants from a hiking companion - Polygala myrtifolia and a low blue indigenous Salvia. I will use the sunny gaps in July to catch up with the garden, which is revelling in rain. Amaryllis belladonna leaves emerged for the first time since we moved here. 

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