Excitement

Some very exciting things are about to happen in my yard, which I will dutifully document for you in good time, but I wanted to alert everyone to this. Ellen Hornig of Seneca Hill Perennials just got back from two weeks in the eastern Cape and Lesotho, and wrote it up on her website, one of the best things I have read in a long time. Illustrated with spectacular pictures, including John Manning and Brunsvigia grandiflora in habitat. Still, I think her earlier shot of B. radulosa might be my favorite ever:

It's the water

It's always a bit of a shock when it really starts to rain again. After a few months of summer the mind rebells at the concept of precipitation. You can tell who's a gardener today: everyone else is frowning.

Anyway, the first rains here mean springtime in the Southern hemisphere. There are many ways to suffer vicariously through the cruelest antipodean month; start with a flickr search for Table Mountain.

Among other things, that search revealed the awesome picture to the right, which finally explains the mythically paradoxical "free-draining and moisture retentive soil" that they always tell us about. Also, the secret of success with Disa among other plants.

Fun with flickr

Beware flickr maps. It's easy to go a little crazy on the exotic flora. If you stare at the original size of this photograph taken near Nieuwoudtville ZA , you will eventually see hundreds of young Aloe dichotoma trees dotting the hillside. [The yellow-flowered succulents in the foreground might be a Hoodia or Euphorbia, and I have no idea about the purple (Ericas?)]. Poke around fjordaan's photostream for more shots of this wonderful tree.

Unless it's A. pillansii, but I think it's too far south.