May and our False Bay garden

  

by Diana Studer

- gardening for biodiversity

 in Cape Town, South Africa

 

Between catching up with my iNaturalist backlog and this week's elections, not much gardening done. My bird has been framed in 'weathered denim' to sing with his blue-grey square (reduction linocut).

 

Cape robin-chat

Red-wing starlings flocking to Searsia crenata berries - which are falling to the path as they dry out.

 

Red-wing starlings

Bunch of bananas still startles us when we look that way!

 

Bananas

For Through the Garden Gate Down by the Sea in Dorset with Sarah. My camera skills don't capture what my merely human eye does. Waves of purples and a little white. Mother plant and finally a white seedling (hidden away behind the lemon tree) to nurture in a more visible place.

 

Cornish Stripe in purples

For the bluer - Barleria obtusa. White mother Hypoestes aristata. Self-seeded purples vary, more pink, more purple, lighter or darker.

 

Purples for Cornish Stripe
and Zackie Achmat

Lemon tree leafing out. Will rescue it from shrubs and groundcovers when winter fades the lush flowers.

 

Lemon tree

Working on cutting back Hibiscus tiliaceus. Which exploded across to the bird-feeder after the carob was pruned. It has buttery yellow flowers. But way up high and I only see them when they fade and fall.

 

Hibiscus tiliaceus

May flowers. Fruity fragrant South Africa rose - brought that flower in ahead of stormy weather. Felicia daisy - felicity - my colour of happiness. Delicate mauve Plectranthus saccatus. Sturdy Lachenalia bulbifera.

 

May flowers in my garden

That week I took my camera to Kirstenbosch, to record the fire scar. Flames and embers licked down to Newlands forest - held back by firefighters, helicopters with buckets, and indigenous forest resistant to fire. 283 hectares burnt across the Back Table of Table Mountain.

 

Fire scar above Kirstenbosch

Bonus picture of Tetradenia riparia also known as iboza. Leaves smell gently of camphor.

 

Tetradenia riparia

Elections. We had independent candidates for the first time. Western Cape had Zackie Achmat (known for the Treatment Action Campaign for antiretroviral drugs against HIV and AIDS) - "all of us are disheartened by the results for the forces of hate such as MK, the Patriotic Alliance and the Coloured Congress but we accept the will of their voters without question. These are forces that will destroy our society and no democrat should encourage them, faux leftists notwithstanding” he wrote.

 

Garden year month by month here, back to November 2014.

 

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Pictures by Diana Studer

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