I went around my garden today and thought I would post something different. I love getting up close and personal with all my plants and bugs in the garden and wondered what it would be like to be that small! I guess we are if we look at us in relation to the Earth! Anyway, I waned to do something fun!
Guess which flower this is! I will post the answers on the 20th of May, so guess hard and the winner will get one of our Gardening Journals free!
A clue: they come from my garden so I would most probably have posted them before….. Have fun!!
Our second combined post specially for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, here’s whats happening in our Autumn Gardens. We hope you enjoy our “April blooms” and then join Carol at May Dreams Gardens to see what she and other gardeners around the world have blooming today – the Spring Gardens in the Northern Hemisphere are looking stunning so please go and take a look! And then also take a look at ‘Garten Blogger Blüten im April‘ over at Seepferds Garten – A stunning garden in Berlin, Germany, who hosts the German version of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day! Then join us all by showing whats flowering in your garden – we’d love to see.
Come on SA Gardeners, there are so few South African Gardens on display at Garden Bloggers Bloom Day and we want to see more! (If you want see another beautiful South African Autumn Garden, visit Diana’s garden at Elephant’s Eye. Its looking spectacular in Porterville).
Well and truly into Autumn, there is little to show you that you haven’t already seen. Camellias are in full bloom and looking quite lovely and the Mona Lavender are still providing plenty of interest with their understated little purple flowers. Autumn it may be but my garden is all pink, white and violet … very pretty, and I’m working hard at preparing my Spring Garden, deciding when and where to plant which bulbs, getting everything ready and prepared, its lots of fun! For today, here are my most show-worthy Blooms (Tibouchina is my favourite flower right now. Does anyone else have one of these?)
I am quite amazed at all the beautiful blooms in Christine’s Garden. I have to say that my display is not so bold and colourful. Subdued and tame, my garden is starting to see the effects of autumn. The only real new flowers that are blooming are my indiginous proteas. But my never-failing lavender and my sweet-smetting roses are always ensuring that my vases in the home stay full :-)! The Lemon Verbena has the most delicate blooms and I had to add this small bush because she is trying so very hard. I have a few new-comers that seem to have stayed – the small violas. I do hope you enjoy what I can offer and I am looking forward to seeing all the spring gardens up there in the Northern Hemisphere! Happy Blooming Friday!!
Very exciting for me is that my first Iceberg Standard Rose has produced a whole bunch of buds and here is the first Rose starting to open. I’m happy about this because I was actually very unimpressed by the three standard roses I was sold. When I compare the state they were in (not great) and what I was charged, to the Iceberg Standards I saw last week in Elgin available from Duncan’s Roses. Their specimens were in 1000% better condition, totally beautiful specimens and cost less that half of what I was charged. But we live and learn … right?
And it is very rewarding that mine is opening up and looking like its going to be verrrry pretty!
If you love Roses, visit my two favourite “Garden Blogging Buddies” who have the most magnificent Rose Gardens. They are Holley’s Blog at “Roses & Other Gardening Joys“, and Masha’s Blog at “A Rose is a Rose …“. These two ladies and their lovely Rose Gardens inspired me to try Roses in my garden!
Happy Gardening
xxx
Here is an update – Fully opened today (Tuesday) and lots of buds on the bushes!
Eye Candy is the theme of Blooming Friday over on Katarina’s Blog this week, so how fortunate am I to have become the very proud owner of an apricot coloured Vireya Rhododendron, just in time to take part and be able to show off my new blooms? So here are my fabulous new flowers about which I am immensely excited – For the first time, I present to you …
My newly acquired, rare, apricot coloured Vireya Rhododendron
My very special, pink coloured Vireya Rhododendron
I got these two beautiful plants for my shade garden from the award-winning horticulturist and specialist plant grower Jim Holmes (whom you might remember I met at the Rare Plant Fair two weeks ago). Jim specialises in unusual and rare plants and has a collection of plants that simply amazes! I’ll have to save up now if I want anymore plants from him – they are not cheap.
Clivias, for example, take three to four years to flower. They cannot be propagated from tissue so all Clivias need to be hand pollinated when breeding your own. So when a specialist grower pollinates to produce an unusual colour (eg. the near whites and yellow Clivia’s Jim is well known for), they have to produce up to 100 plants of which very few will be the rare colour types – and it takes 3-4 years before they know which of the 100 plants they have grown will have produced a rare colour as it takes that long for them to flower for the first time. (I hope I’ve explained this correctly – I have written it the way I understood it). It was very interesting learning about this today.
I would love to have one of those dark yellow ‘Butterball’ or near white ‘Snowball’ Clivias one day. See Jim’s website for his Clivias here: http://www.capeseedandbulb.com/. Jim does export Clivia seeds – he arranges the required paperwork so you can order seed from him if you are interested in growing your own rare coloured Clivias from seed. Me, I’m an “instant gratification” kinda girl – no waiting four years for a plant to flower – I’ll save up and buy a flowering Clivia from Jim one of these days…
If you are interested in Vireya Rhododendrons see the website at http://www.vireya.net and while you are surfing around, stop over to admire more eye-candilicious blooms at “Blooming Friday – Eye Candy“!
Since I joined the website, Blotanical, in February I’ve been visiting many gardening blogs from all over the world and am learning about many different plants. One that has been coming up regularly is Helleborus or Hellebores. They appear to be very popular winter / early spring flowering plants suited to shade gardens so of course that piqued my interest. Anything that does well in a shade garden AND is as pretty as these plants and flowers are, was bound to find its way onto my “list”. Although I see Hellebores in the South African gardening books and mentioned on a few South African websites, I have not yet seen any at a local nursery. I keep expecting to find them in those little 6 pack seedling trays, but so far no joy.
This week Barbie and I took a little road trip and went to visit some specialist nurseries. At last … there they were waiting for me – Hellebores! I think the lady at the nursery thought I was a bit nuts because I got so excited when I spotted them. I purchased three nice sized plants (now I wish I’d taken more, but she only had a few) and I’m hoping they do well in my garden.
[one_half]My three new Helleborus plants[/one_half]
I’ve have been reading up about Hellebores and found out that Azaleas make good companion plants for Hellebores so that solves two problems – what additional plants to put in the Azalea bed and where to plant the new Hellebores! My Azalea bed can do with some attractive additions, is well shaded and now I can’t wait to get them in the ground. Only problem is … I’m wishing I had bought more! Unfortunately the lady at the nursery couldn’t tell me what colour flower they are as she got them from someone in Johannesburg. But I don’t really care – It will be fun to see what they are when they eventually flower! I’ve seen so many varieties and colours on the blogs I visit – and they are all beautiful so I’m really happy to have found these.
What’s the bet that now I finally have some, Hellebores will probably start appearing in all the local nurseries next week …
According to the RHS, Hellebores (sometimes known as the Christmas or Lenten rose) are perennial garden plants with elegant flowers, perfect for brightening up shady areas during late winter and early spring. Some species are grown for their striking evergreen architectural foliage.
Any tips on “Raising Hellebores” will be greatly appreciated! Mine are labelled: Helleborus Orientalis.
No its not an April Fools joke – Its well and truly Autumn in Cape Town now but I do still have a few blooms to share. The evenings are cool and we’ve had some rain, though not the non-stop goes-on-for-days rain we get in winter, just light showers. Real rain will follow in May, June and July. So there is not much flowering in my garden at the moment that is “Wow-worthy”, but I wanted to share the few blooms I do have, some because they are pretty, some because they are a first for me, and some … well just because they are flowering. I’ve spared you the Camellias though … I think I’ve shown enough of those for a while even though they are giving us a great show at the moment. Also flowering is one deformed Clivia (it shouldn’t be) and the Hibiscus are showing off their last few flowers!
So here we go … Flowering at the end of March (you can click to enlarge the photos)
[one_half]The new Potato bush[/one_half]
[one_half_last]Still flowering, the Petunias[/one_half_last]
The last two are big failures! The Azaleas don’t look great at all, very disappointing, and the last photograph is of my neighbours Oleander which is hanging over the wall into my back yard – not on my list of favourites!
This morning I had the privilege of attending the Autumn Rare Plant Fair 2011 at Rustenberg Wines in Stellenbosch in the glorious Cape Winelands. A friend had invited me and we set off early this morning as the drive to Stellenbosch is about 45 minutes and we wanted to get there early before all the good plants were sold out. And I’m so glad we did. By the time we arrived at 9.00 am parking was already difficult and the grounds were teeming with plant lovers from all over the Cape. This annual Rare Plant Fair was once again held at Rustenberg Wines. Twenty-five specialist growers were selling their plants directly to the gardening public. Tea, coffee and a variety of eats were available under the oaks, and special discounts on Rustenberg wines were available to purchase by wine lovers.
Held at Rustenberg Wine Estate, the setting was beautiful. The weather was perfect, a lovely sunny day, no wind, temperature in the high 20’s (C), and the plants on offer were simply gorgeous. I could have spent a small fortune had I taken more cash. (cash was king here, no credit card machines available). We wondered around and “oohed” and “aahed” at all the fabulous plants available (The variety of Day lillies and Orchids available were hugely impressive). I recognised many plants from books but the only plant I saw that I see regularly at the nurseries I frequent was Clivia, and at a much better price! I have plenty of Clivia in my back shade garden, so those weren’t of interest to me today. It was the rare Irises, rare, endangered and vulnerable and other special plants I was after. We shopped and then enjoyed some cake and coffee under the oaks and then … we bought some more!
Ryan bought a few bulbs, a beautiful peach coloured Rhododendron, a whole batch of Irises and the same white flowering plant I bought (Anemone). I bought a whole bunch of rare bulbs (have written about my bulb ‘haul’ here: Rare indigenous bulbs), a beautiful grass – Panicum Virgatum “Shenandoah” and a few Irises. The “Stanley Blue” Irises we bought were VERY expensive. (R150.00 each). Apparantly these have just become available and a search on the Internet returns no results so it seems this may well be true. We also bought “Colorific” and “Sinfonietta” Irises – all beautiful variations of blue Irises. I’m really excited about planting these in my garden! Lastly, I got a little four-leaf clover for R20.00. I couldn’t resist – its supposed to be lucky, right? I felt quite “lucky” getting all these gorgeous plants!
Now I’m off to do some more reading up on my new rare bulbs which include Geissorhiza radiens, Gladiolus alatas and Moraea villosa … just to mention a few. Such interesting sounding names!
Note about the Autumn Rare Plant Fair 2011:
This was the first time I’ve ever attended anything like this. I thought it was very well organised, the setting was splendid, the variety of plants was fantastic, the people (staff, exhibitors and atendees) were all very friendly and the atmosphere was great. The huge variety of Orchids and Day Lillies available was outstanding … wish I’d had lots more cash with me. Next time I will save up for a month or two so I have LOTS more cash with me! I’ll definitely go again.
Ryan, thanks so much for taking me! I thoroughly enjoyed the day!
Photo Gallery: (I apologise for the very poor quality of the photos – I took my small point-and-click camera and the photographs are really poor. But you get the idea …)
About Rustenberg Wines: “Enter the gates of Rustenberg with a sense of anticipation. The historic farm, sheltered by the Simonsberg, is a Cape gem that has welcomed visitors since 1682 …” For anyone that is interested in seeing more of this beautiful Wine Estate, here is the link to their website: http://www.rustenberg.co.za/ or you can find out more about the region at Cape Winelands.
I found this lovely little holder with the two vases in it at a little gift shop in Claremont that I often pop in to and fell in love with it. Today, for the first time, I picked flowers from my very own garden and put them in the vases … and I think it looks toooo gorgeous! Such a wonderful feeling that these flowers actually come from my own garden.
Well this was a first for me … today a friend I had not seen in a few weeks “ooohed” and “aahed” about my Camellias and complimented me on my garden! It was a great moment. My lovely daughter is always enthusiastic and Barbie, bless you, you always say lovely things about the garden and I know you both mean it – but when a friend who has little interest in gardening told me today how lovely everything looks and stopped in front of the newly blossoming Camellias and said “wow, what lovely glossy leaves and beautiful flowers” … well, I felt so proud and happy!
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And the Camellias really are show-stoppingly gorgeous right now. Only three of my +/- 25 Camellias have started flowering and they really are giving us a wonderful show. A beautiful red and two different pinks are flowering in the front garden. One small shrub (the red) and two very large shrubs are covered in flowers. It has been a lot of work keeping them in tip-top shape and bug free. Aphids have been at them throughout the summer and its required bi-weekly inspections and washing off of pests and now we have these lovely healthy blooms. What a joy!
I’ve just read this: Aphids are attacked by a number of natural enemies including ladybug beetles and small wasps. I was wondering why I have so many wasps in my garden …
Happy gardening and I wish you a “blooming good week”!
xxx
Our very first combined post, today we celebrate “Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day” with all our new gardening friends from around the world by showing what is flowering in our gardens on the 15th. We hope you enjoy our “blooms” (or as we say here in South Africa, “blommetjies”), and then join Carol at May Dreams Gardens to see what she and other gardeners around the world have blooming today – why not join in by showing the blooms from your garden!
There’s not much happening in my garden as we are now heading into Autumn. As I took a walk around I was surprised to find any “photo-worthy” blooms. In fact, I’m overcome with the need to clean and tidy. Everything looks messy and in need of attention – not the pretty picture of just three short weeks ago. As this is a combined post, I will limit myself to showing just 6 blooms today. A lot of these I’ve already shown over the last few weeks and we are seeing the last of these before the Camellias wake up to delight us through the colder months.
[one_half]The star of my show – Lavender Dentata[/one_half]
Well – I don’t have many blossoms in my garden, seeing it is a functional and edible garden, but I do have my roses and lavender that never fail. I just bought a carnation, so this is exciting to see bloom. I also have a new comfrey plant with the most delicate flowers. To my surprise, my Protea is budding! This is something we all don’t see enough of! Hope you enjoy my variety of blommies!
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If you love Roses, visit my two favourite “Garden Blogging Buddies” who have the most magnificent Rose Gardens. They are Holley’s Blog at “
