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Protea Repens, the iconic Sugarbush

Posted on March 30, 2014 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

If there is an iconic flower on this mountain, indeed in much of the Cape, it is Protea Repens. The book says it flowers all year round but on these mountains this flower is the precursor of autumn and as the days shorten and a damp chill scents the air, these creamy, sometimes pink tipped flowers open all over the farm. The common name is sugarbush and very often they are full of bees feasting themselves on the nectar. I like to think that our honey at this time of year must come mostly from from this source.

This morning was spectacular, blue, green and golden, and the dogs and I set off for a gorgeous run with the objective of capturing some images of Protea Repens as it dominates this flowering moment. With the rain we’ve had there will be more to see before long.

The national flower of South Africa is Protea cynaroides, the King Protea and with it’s huge and gorgeous flowers one can understand why. I was interested to read in my research that until 1976 the national flower was in fact Protea repens. It makes sense, it is stunningly beautiful, ubiquitous here in the Cape and there is something glorious about this shrub that chooses to flower in the arid season of the year when all is dried and shrivelled, all colour gone and which continues to flower all through the winter. We will see more of these in the blog, I can’t resist how they catch the endlessly different light on the mountain and in the months to come we’ll see great banks of them flowering all over the farm.

Protea Repens – if you look closely you can see the feasting bees

A pink and white Protea repens catches the morning light

A pink and cream Protea repens catches the morning light

Light shining through a large Protea repens sighted at the top of the olive groves

The same shrub covered with creamy white flowers

Helichrysum Days

Posted on February 7, 2014 by fynbosblog One comment

I try to write this blog at least once a week, sometimes more, with the aim of staying current with the flowering cycle on the mountain. For some reason the past 10 days have been particularly busy. We had a series of guests, family and friends, which is wonderful although it puts paid to quiet nights when we can watch TV and write blogs. Then horses and dogs have needed trips to the vet. The magnificent Seamus has had a bad time. He got a tummy bug, received treatment and then had a frightening adverse reaction to the treatment. It is a well documented allergy, but so rare that our vet had never seen it. Two days of worry later he is much better although his back legs are not working perfectly and we don’t know if he hurt himself, or if it’s a consequence of the neurological reaction he suffered from. He’s not in pain; he would tell us if he was, but it will be at least a few more days before he’s allowed running on the mountain again.

The horses were just getting all their routine annual innoculations, check-ups, dentistry and so on. All of which needs doing but is rather time consuming along with work and the guests. I must remember next year how busy this time of year can be and plan a little bit better.

Peter’s business has picked up and while we wouldn’t say orders are flooding in, the painful trickle has certainly become a steady trickle. Which should be wonderful except that labour protests are growing in South Africa and he had a sit in strike at the factory today. Fortunately it was resolved quite quickly. How frustrating finally to have some business, so that we can potentially pay more and afford bigger bonuses and instead be dealing with strikes and knowing our overseas customers are watching this and wondering whether SA is the right place to do business. That’s not to be negative, just realistic. Peter is brilliant at managing these situations and he will sort it out.

To my delight there are all sorts of happenings on the mountain which make running a pleasure. In particular several different Helicrysums are in flower. Plants that flower at this time of year tend to have dry looking or tiny flowers that can cope with the potential heatwave as you can see from these pictures.

Helichrysum Flowers

Helichrysum flowers – a different sub-species

Yet another variety to be found here on the mountain: Helichrysum flowers

A cloud of Helichrysum in the morning light, this one situated in the heart of the olive groves; they grow all over the farm

I started this blog last year in March when the first of the proteas came into bloom. So it is exciting to witness the burgeoning of protea life as the shrubs of Protea repens are covered in buds and will flower in the next few weeks. That, for me, is the start of our flowering year and I cannot wait.

The Protea repens is budding, a harbinger of summer's end. The first flowers will emerge well before the autumn rains

The Protea repens is budding and heralds the end of summer. The first flowers will emerge well before the autumn rains

We have exceptional sunsets at this time of year. Almost every night and it is a lovely time to walk around the farm. With Seamus on the sick list we haven’t gone far and last night I took this picture of the farmhouse with the pink mountains behind us.

Pink sunset on the mountains

Sometimes we can get strange effects of the light as the sun goes down, like this photo of the sun just dropping behind Paarl mountain. Taken a moment later than the one above there is a circular glow around the setting sun that was distinctive and I was surprised it was captured so easily by the iPhone camera.

Sunset over Paarl rock

Wild windy summer sunsets

Posted on December 11, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

I never get tired of looking at the view from the balcony and because we look west we have wonderful sunsets. Tonight’s was special by any standard. I took this photo just as the sun had gone down – no filter, just the last light of the setting sun reflected from the clouds onto the dam.

Sunset over the dam

We had Christopher, the brother-in-law, to stay and before he left I offered to take him up the mountain and show him the flowers. All spring we’ve had a wonderful time showing our guests the wonders of the mountain fynbos flowers. That time has passed. He loved being up on the mountain but the flowers have become sparse and less interesting to the casual visitor. A really passionate gardner might still enjoy it – for the less passionate there is merely fading and die back and the fucundity of the land has passed into dryness survival mode.

It doesn’t mean that there is nothing of interest out there, I’ve often mentioned that yellow daisy-like flowers are among the hardest to identify. This one could be the rock daisy, Heterolopis, or perhaps Leysera. If I see it again which is quite likely we’ll take a closer look.

Heterolopis or Rock Daisy?

The wind continues to blow – it has been more than a week now, which is quite unusual and not a let up in the forecast. The dogs love it particularly the wolfhounds and here is Maebh standing in the wind, allowing it to stream through her coat.

Maebh poses in the evening light, letting the wind slip through her coat

Jemima Chew on the other hand finds her solace in water and the permanent streams. She loves to wallow and lie the flow and then stands up, looking about her, thoroughly pleased with herself.

Jemima Chew – life is good

As Christopher and I chatted and walked I kept my eyes open for anything new and exciting, expectations low. And here we are, hidden beneath some fynbos scrub, this exquisite pelargonium. There are nearly 300 subspecies, 150 in the fynbos region of which only 20 or so are in the book. This one is so lovely, the colours, the delicate shape of the petals. I would be tempted to move it to the garden but my fingers are not the greenest and what if it’s the only one? I only ever transplant the very common flowers, anything that might be rare, special or precious belongs on the mountain.

A Pelargonium we have not seen before

Summer

Posted on November 26, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

As spring turns into summer the intense proliferation of new flowers on the mountain is dying back and I don’t really expect to see new things as frequently. So far there has been something new on each of the 50 runs that I’ve done since I started the blog. That won’t continue when the summer sun sucks every last bit of moisture out of the ground, leaving it rock hard, dry and dusty.

Summer running has quite a different feel to winter running. The wind for a start; when it’s hot and dry the famous Cape Doctor, the southeaster, howls over the mountain, shredding all but the hardiest plants in the garden. Suddenly it is clear why so many fynbos plants have tough spikey or needlelike leaves. They need them to survive the wind and the summer drought.

We did some quick runs with no photo stops last week on a route that we run quite frequently and then on Friday morning the dogs and I decided to go for a proper blogging run to the highest point of the farm where there a shady damp road that always has something interesting to look at. When it gets hot like this we seek out the few shady groves, damp areas and streams to get a break from the relentless morning sun. Maebh as she often does, posed for the camera. Perhaps not the best ever photo of her but the colour of her coat is gorgeous in the dappled light.

Just a little further on, caught in a pool of sunlight, stood this amazing flower. Although I can’t find it in the books, the slightly twisted sword like leaves tell me it is a kind of Gladioli and if I have some time I’ll hunt through the Fynbos Bulb Encyclopedia to see if any of the descriptions match this. I love this photo, the flowerhead in a pool of light against the dark shadow of the trees.

I’m never 100% sure that I have identified this flower correctly – there are 52 fynbos subspecies in the Metalasia family and the photos in the books are not great. I’ve published photos of them before and I couldn’t resist this one with its spectacular pink flower. I believe it’s Metalasia divergens.

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Babinia Fragrens, the Harbinger of Spring

Posted on July 26, 2013 by fynbosblog 2 comments

I got home on Tuesday morning and of course my first thought was to get up on the mountain and see new flowers though I didn’t achieve it until late in the day.

Every year as we reach the end of July, the coldest and wettest six weeks of the Cape year, a flower emerges that is for me the harbinger of spring. Like hearing the first cuckoo, I always note where and when I see the first Babinia fragrens. These crocus-like flowers cover the farm, they are everywhere – and the bulbs are particularly loved by porcupines. Last year I was running up a steep hill on the farm when I came across a 300 metre stretch of road where a happy porcupine had wandered up and dug up every single plant to munch on the bulbs. There are plenty to share and it was fun to think of him happily crunching not far from the house in the night as we slept.

Babinia Fragens, the first of the year

Next up was this delicate white flower. I didn’t get a great picture of it – I think it’s a Cape Snowflake, to give it it’s common name, but will pop it into the research folder and see if we can get a better shot. These are quite common so I’m sure we’ll see more.

Opposite the Cape Snowflake, the water was tumbling in huge volumes down the waterfall in the evening sunlight – there’s been a lot of rain while I’ve been away.

One of the other wonderful sights of late winter and early spring is the Lebostemum. Another very common flowering shrub which flowers now and for several months. I have tried several times to transplant these to the garden, but they have a long fragile tap root and even very young ones invariably die. They are magnificent shrubs and flower in blue, pink or anything inbetween.

Lobostemon fructicosus

We wanted a good view of the sunset and went to the highest point of the farm on a road we don’t often run. This wonderful combination of Protea nerifolia and Protea nitida blocked our route at one point and forced a detour.

Protea nerifolia and Protea nitida in the evening light

On the detour we came across this stunning Erica with little pink bell-like flowers in full bloom. Pink ericas with bell-like or urn-like flowers are like yellow daisies, there are an aweful lot of them and they are hard to tell apart. Thanks due to Jemima Chew who stood behind them, making them much easier to photograph!

One of the many ericas that flowers with a tiny pink bell-like flower

The Cape Sugarbirds are in full mating feathers at the moment and they are having a lovely time in areas where the proteas are thickest. Their tails are so long they can hardly fly – that’s the males of course, the females look drab and take their pick. I haven’t yet managed to get a really good shot of one but hopefully it’s a matter of time.

I don’t believe we have posted and recorded this protea which is now in full flower.

Protea – indentification will be confirmed in a further posting

Finally – another sunset. As dusk gathers and the sun sets you can see the mist from the Berg River gathering on the valley floor. No wind, the light is stunning and in the far distance table mountain and the whole of Cape Town is covered by a dark wall of cloud. The rain is coming.

Stormy Weather 4 June 2013

Posted on June 4, 2013 by fynbosblog One comment

We have been having the most dreadful weather. Day after day with torrents of rain and low cloud on the mountain, we can barely see a flower, never mind try to photograph one in the gloom. This morning when I woke up there was silence. No rain drumming on the zinc roof. If I don’t run for a few days I feel horrible and miss it and worse, I know it will be harder when I do get out there. It’s cold, there is probably snow on the mountain above us but the thought of fresh air and happy dogs was enough to get me up and into running things. I took the precaution of wearing a rain jacket on top, in case the deluge came.

In the gloom and the early light I didn’t expect to see much and it’s true that there is nothing new. I suspect we need sunshine and a little warmth to encourage flowering. One plant that has come out in profusion is the wild rosemary. The tiny white flower is too delicate and subtle to capture in the half light of the early morning but they are everywhere and will be the subject of a future blog.

Jumping out of the gloom are the lime green leucadendrons and Maebh the wolfhoud (pronounced “mave” as in “wave”) chose to position herself photogenically behind them. I think she may be taking lessons in modeling, she’s certainly getting better at posing fetchingly for the camera.

The leucadendron was particularly stunning in the morning light – a photo of the mountain shows the green shrubs glowing in the gloomy morning.

Close ups give you an idea of this lovely wild, winter flowering shrub.

The proteas start flowering even before the rains come, typically in late March and continue for months. They love the rain and the flowers gleam white while the buds can be bright pink.

Protea Repens

Another pink protea is the nerifolia which flowers prolifically at this time of year. I went up this evening to see if the evening light would let me capture the waterfall and chanced on this one as the first rays of sunlight we’ve seen in days caught it.

Protea Nerifolia

Peter told me that with all the rain the waterfall would be looking spectacular. There is a story to this – when we bought the farm this entire area was covered in alien vegetation. We started a programme of clearing those trees, hundreds of them, and revealed an old road, which must have lead up to the pass over the mountains, and this beautiful fall of water from a permanent stream. We’ve planted some indigenous trees, continue to do the clearing and we’ve seen the most amazing resurgence of fynbos in this area. The fall is hard to photograph as it sits in a crevasse that blocks the light, you can see the shadow – at this time of year the late flash of sunlight sneaks into the crevasse and nearly catches the water, so at leasst you can get a sense of it. There must be a moment when the light is at just the right angle and I’ll endeavour to be there when it does.

It’s raining again now, but as I walked home in the last of the light the sky seemed to hold a promise of better things to come. After 10 days of almost constant rain and increasing cold we’ll welcome a little sunshine. This photo of the road that leads from the main farm down to the farmhouse wouldn’t win any prizes, but I like the gleam of wet on the road and the glimpse of blue in the sky. We need this rain in the winter, it keeps this land fertile and the more rain now, the better the spring flowers will be. The dogs and I hope for better things and brighter runs for the rest of this week.

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15 May 2013 Misty morning run, sunlit evening departure

Posted on May 17, 2013 by fynbosblog One comment

Here I am, sitting in a hotel room in London, going through the photos and evoking the memory of my morning run the day we left. I can smell the wild rosemary and the cool misty air and imagine the rush of happy hounds as they head off to inspect all their favourite places.

The night before I left I had a meeting in Cape Town and driving up the drive at about 11.30 at night a huge presence emerged out ofthe night. It was such a surprise that it took a second for recognition to kick in . A porcupine, a large, ungainly porcupine with his quills fanned in outrage as he bumbled off the road and into the night. What a lovely sighting. We’ve always known they are on the farm because we see their quills, but our first ever sighting was only a month ago on the same road, so he must have changed his routine and perhaps we’ll see more off him. I didn’t have the presence of mind to photograph him; maybe next time I’ll be quicker.

I went early for my run the day I left and it was too dark to see much or to take good photos. There are mornings when the valley is covered with fog, lapping at the foothills like waves on the beach. The world below us disappears and we float on the white sea clothed in clear morning light.

Not such a good day for flowers but I did capture one photo of Seamus looking particularly like himself, standing in his favourite spot. It’s a little dark, but you get an idea of him.

Some plants seem to capture the light and glow in the gloom. One of the is the Leucodendron, a close relation of the protea. I’ll write more about these when I get home, the farm is covered in them and they are the most elegant of plants.

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13 May 2013

Posted on May 14, 2013 by fynbosblog One comment

There are days when I bound up the mountain followed by happy dogs, fully of the joys of, not spring as it’s autumn here, but certainly the joys of life and the beauty of this place in the morning light. And there are other days, probably far more frequent, when the run is more of a plod, as the busy life we lead catches up, sleep is never enough and despite the glories to be found on the mountain it’s an effort to drag myself out there. Yesterday was one of those other days.

Luckily there was lots to photograph so I had plenty of excuses to stop and to take my time and the usual morning run took much longer than it should have.

The first excitement is that the wild rosemary is in flower. Like the buchu that we farm it is cultivated for the perfume industry. The shrub is a little nondescript thing, a few grey tendrils coming out of the ground, until it flowers and then these exquisite flowers emerge at the top of each branch. Very common, they are all over the place at the moment.

Eriocephalus africanus or Wild Rosemary
Many of the flowering fynbos have a long season – one of them is the fynbos version of salvia. It starts to flower in late November or early December and it’s still flowering prolifically now. There are several of these bordering the roads where we run and they are like friends we great every day for half the year. Coming towards the end of their season now and flowering as vigorously as ever.

Salvia chamelaeagnea

As we run, or should I say plod, up the path that goes through the olive groves to the top of the farm, we pass this fearsome, stunning shrub. I showed this photo to Peter, my husband and he wryly acknowledged that he knows it all too well. Like many South African farmers he likes to wear shorts and sometimes comes home with his legs ripped to shreds. This chap is one of the culprits. But look at what a stunning chap he is. I actually managed to get a shot of the small thorn-head in focus, grey with tiny spikes of gold set in little balls. A bigger version could be a medieval weapon of war. I don’t know what this is, there’s lots of it about and it must be pretty common and I will identify it sooner or later and post the name.

One of the most varied and most prolific fynbos varieties we have are the Ericas. You know this species as heather. The amazing thing about Ericas is that they grow all over Africa and Europe but 80% of the species grow in Southern Africa and there are 660 fynbos sub-species. Quite a few of these grow on this farm, so there will be plenty of Ericas in the blog. Here’s the first one, another long standing friend who flowers throughout the hot months, giving us lovely purple-mauve flashes on the mountain when all else is hiding deep underground away from the relentless sun. I don’t know which of the 660 this one is. Will have to get a book or two on Ericas – there are plenty more to come.

One of the 660 subspecies of Erica resident in the region

Finally, there I was, puffing along, when I saw a little group of tiny pink whorls. Pulled up and investigated. A little flower head with flowers tightly furled waiting for more daylight. I drove up later to catch them open. I haven’t identified it but it looks and behaves like Oxalis so that’s what we’ll call it. Completely different to the Oxalis I photographed a few days ago with their clover-like leaves, and that is the enduring joy of fynbos.

Oxalis?

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10 May 2013

Posted on May 10, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

Some flowers are at their best in the subtle light of dawn and dusk while others curl up and go to sleep, only showing off their brilliance in the full light of day. I was driving home yesterday afternoon, wondering if I really was going to find enough flowers on this farm to justify a whole year of blogging, when I noticed the bank was studded with pink and white flowers. When I’m out running early in the morning they are all but invisible but during the day they are everywhere, on the banks, on the roads and all over the lands.

Oxalis Purpurea

These come in a multitude of colours and at least a couple of varieties that I’ve noted here on the farm. What I love about them is that they seem to be the first bulbs to flower each year, showing almost immediately after the first rains. Of all the fynbos bulbs are among the most delightful, highly localised in terms of where they grow, often so fragile that one wonders they can survive at all, hugely varied and the first sighting of a favourite flower each year is always a moment of private joy, very Wordsworth, somewhat hackneyed yet so true. We’ll be having some surprised by joy moments I’m afraid.

Oxalis Purpurea

While photographing the Oxalyis I saw a different flash of white, something I hadn’t noticed before. It’s one of those I’m not certain of, yet so distinctive that I think it must be Stachys Aethiopica. It was quite hard to capture and if I see more out there I’ll try and get a better shot. A very distinctive white flower and the leaves were used medicinally in the past; the common English name is woundwort.

Stachys Aetheopica

Part of the fun is identifying the plants as it lends a component of detection to my day. Sometimes I’ll get it wrong. When the yellow lobelia I thought I’d identified last week started to show tiny little fluffy seedheads I thought “that can’t be right” and went back to the book. Indeed I should have known better as I grew up with a garden that had lots of senecio in it and this turns out to be Senecio pubigerus.

Senecio Pubigerus

I have been trying to get a bit fitter this week as I’m riding in a show at the weekend, so for a couple of days I’ve been running twice a day. One evening the light was exceptional, it was too dark to take flower photos but I could not resist a couple of sunset shots and a rare picture of Maebh the Irish Wolfhound standing still. And a picture of the farmhouse as we crossed over the dam wall when it was very nearly dark.

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Introducing The Fynbos Blog

Posted on March 17, 2013 by fynbosblog Leave a comment

Most mornings I get up and unless I have other early morning commitments I take the dogs for a run around our farm, situated on the mountains of Klein Drakenstein Municipality in the Western Cape of South Africa. Because it has a Mediterranean climate with dry summers and wet winters, unlike the rest of sub-Saharan Africa which has wet summers and dry winters, the Cape Floral Kingdom is unique and diverse and known as the 8th Floral Kingdom of the world. All year as we are out running, me and the dogs, a spectacular botannical feast unfolds before us, and every year I think that I must find a way to share it with a broader audience. Collectively the shrubs and bulbs of the Cape Floral Kingdom are known as Fynbos.

The year starts, in my mind, at the end of February or early March which is the end of summer in this part of the world. Typically we have had a hot dry summer, often with no rain at all from early January and the floral life dries and dies by, with only some robust flowers, usually near a source of underground water, surviving the heat and blazing sunshine. We rarely go over 40 degree here on the farm, but in the valley, in Paarl, it can be 45 on a hot summer day. Suddenly, before the rains, the mountains burst into life, as Protea Repens, for me the first flower of the new botannical year, bursts into life.

This year I will take a photographic record of as many flowers as possible, starting with Protea Repens, and including a tiny pelagonium that I found nestled by the side of a path, unusal for the time of year. I will include anything I know about the plant, but I welcome comments as I’m no expert.

Protea Repens is common on the Du Toitskloof Mountain and is commonly known as sugarbush. It can be pure cream, or the petals can be tipped with pink. The flowers are narrow and cupshaped. The shrubs, here on the farm at least, grow in massive quantities and the spectacle of pink and white flowers is a magnificent sight.

There are hundreds of different pelargoniums, worthy of a book in themselves and we have many different species on the farm. I couldn’t identify this one.