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

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
Lachenalia bulbifera

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


Cotyledon orbiculata
Cotyledon orbiculata 

Euphorbia tirucalli finally gaining height and glowing orange.


Euphorbia tirucalli
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
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
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 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

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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Comments

  1. It's good to hear that you're receiving a normal amount of rain this winter - I'll hold out hope that we experience the same when winter comes around again here. I love all your vibrant succulent flowers. Lachenalia is largely unavailable here, although I discovered a mail order nursery that sells some, albeit only in late summer. Your post is a good reminder to scope out my selections now so I can get my order in next month when their sales window opens.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This one is an enthusiastic spreader. My smaller ones in pots I have neglected.

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  2. Your garden is so colourful despite the fall in temperatures! Your Aloe marlothii is amazing those flowers are incredible. How long have you had the plant? Sorry you are in another lockdown, it is good that you have some good virology labs to track the variant. Take care. Sarah x

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    Replies
    1. Planted in 2015, when the renovation was done, and I could get into our new garden.

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  3. Amazing colours! Sorry to hear about another lockdown. Here the situation is better now and at the moment we are in green zone, but we are listening about incoming Delta variant all the time.

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  4. Thank you for that reassurance. You are my reminder to put words in the gaps where you once saw my pictures.

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  5. Dear Diana,
    I always love your garden pictures. So different to mine and so amazing exotic. Have a good and healthy time. All my best
    Elisabeth

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  6. Another lockdown :-( Beautiful alien looking plants!

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    Replies
    1. This one is making me nervous. But maybe today Gauteng has turned the corner and cases are coming down.

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  7. So pretty. Our garden is beginning to look a little brown. Haven't had any rain for ages. Stay safe!!!
    Amalia
    xo

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  8. With all that cold, you still have flowers in bloom! Lovely

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  9. Very beautiful, the orange and red flowers, they bring the warmth that you don't have at the moment. I also find this Covid situation with lockdown, opening, new lockown daunting. We definitely enjoy our life, but it is annoying that new waves surge up again and again and that we, who have been vaccinated twice, have to limit ourselves again.
    Stay healthy!
    All the best,
    Traude

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  10. Lockdowns are difficult, but I wish they would do it here. I am fully vaccinated, but still wear my mask and practice social distancing. Too many people here think it is all over and have just gone back to how things were before the pandemic. Stay safe and warm. xo Laura

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  11. Wow, you have some spectacular big beauties in your winter garden! Your Euphorbia is very different from the ones I know. The Aloe is amazing too.

    Did your header photo go funny on phones? It shouldn't. I'm going to have to check my blog on my phone now, as I don't use the phone for much as I have an ipad mini. My blog photo looks fine there, and I recently changed it to get rid of the moorhens and put in a very wide photo of the Pyrenees as a header. I did figure out how to do it after all these years!! I remember what to do with the 'widgets' so was able to get rid of the old subscribe button and put a new one in. You get given the code to paste into a widget by whichever subscription business you decide to go with. Can't give you more info without being in the layout page. Good luck with it all, what a palaver.

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    Replies
    1. Ditching the header was partly a response to blogs have gone more minimal, and might as well go straight to the fresh photos.

      I love your wide view of snowy mountains!

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  12. I'm smitten with Euphorbia tirucalli; I'm very fond of those yellow-orange colors.
    The delta variant has arrived here and infection rates are climbing again in Maine after reaching a low seven-day average of only one new case per day for every 100,000 people. The frustrating thing is that we have the vaccines in the US to prevent widespread infection, but many people are refusing to take them. I'm glad I got a visit in to the main public library in Portland (our largest city) when it opened; I have a feeling it will be closing again soon. I was back to wearing a mask for my trip to the supermarket today.

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