Southern Spring

27 Oct '07 6:12 pm

Well, Jack-

Another wonderful set of pictures! I loved the one of the couch potatoes; reminds me of my temporary two! Also, the wide-scale images showing where things are in relation to each other were wonderful. It's hard to believe that you aren't living in eastern Canada somewhere! But then along come the brochure images and the place names are SO exotic!! I don't think Canada has ANY Dutch or Afrikaans place names!

And then there are the rose pictures. Well, you already know what I think of green roses, so we won't discuss that Smile

, but to hear you comment about how poorly your Rosa glauca has been doing, I'd have thought that is was a wizened-up little thing. Au contraire, it looks VERY healthy!! Aren't the leaves a wonderful colour! Wherever I may move to, that's ONE plant that I'll want to take with me!

It threw me for a minute to think that you have only 6 weeks left until the end of the school year, when here, teachers are working like mad to get the first report cards out! I don't envy them at all!! Do you have regular parent interviews there, as we do? And how do you manage teaching in all of the official languages in S.A.? I realize that some of them must be regionally distributed, but, for example, do English-speaking and Afrikaans-speaking students go to the same schools or to separate ones? We have enough problems with English and French (not to mention Mandarin, Japanese, Bengali, Ukrainian and possibly other immersion schools) in Canada.

Well, do keep the great pictures coming. I guess my picture-taking will suffer a slowdown for the next while as winter begins to set in, but it's great knowing that all you southern-hemisphere gardeners will help to keep my spirits alive through the darkness of winter!

All the best,

gordonf

28 Oct '07 12:23 am

Fabulous pictures yet again, Jack. Needless to say, the waterlilies are absolutely gorgeous! I loved the couch potatoes picture too, and the view down to the big house is spectacular - I'm sure it must be a lovely place to sit and contemplate your next project! Oh, and that one from the dam with the trees reflecting in the water is stunning too. Thanks for showing them to us. Smile

28 Oct '07 1:28 am

Thanks Jack.

28 Oct '07 6:50 pm

Lots of photo goodies here. Like Bambi I was smitten by the couch potatos and the waterlillies. I couldn't help but think when I saw the first photo of the waterlillies: "Is there no photo that the inclusion of a puppy wouldn't improve?" You really have quite the pack there. I didn't know that you grew water lillies -or else forgot it. Are you able to leave them out in their pond year around?

I was intrigued by the pamphlet. I couldn't be sure where on the map your place would be. I recognized many of the photos .. certainly the bridge but also the blue flowers and the azaleas/rhodies. The stair case looked different. I remember a photo of your folks (mother/father) walking down some steps but I don't remember them being so wide. Some of your earlier photos had some formal flourishes with which that wide staircase would fit. Is that one taken in your garden?

I was struck by the size of some of your tree ferns in a few shots you posted, as well as near a neighbor's pond/picnic area in some fairly recent photos. I'm very fond of them. Are there native tree ferns in S. Africa? I think not. Yours look like Cyathia so probably cooperii I'm guessing since it would be hardy enough for your frosts I think.

Regarding the bromeliades, I'm not sure yet if they're for me. They seem so out of place everywhere I put them. I like them as objects-unto-themselves but as components of the larger garden I haven't figured out how to incorporate them into the larger scene yet - but I might yet.

Happy springing,

29 Oct '07 10:17 am

I must admit... I was rather impressed myself with the last two posts Wink

Gordon, you ask about languages: traditionally white education was either Afrikaans or English, and the cause for the 1976 Soweto uprising which marked the turning point for apartheid was the decision to use Afrikaans rather than English as the main feeder language in black schools. The black languages are ill equipped to teach maths, science etc., and in fact the written literature in some is almost non-existent. In theory mother-tongue education is open to all in all 11 languages. In practice English - and sometimes Afrikaans - takes over by about year 5. Many Afrikaans schools in Afrikaans areas are now duel medium (i.e. also English) as black pupils insisted on being educated in English. It sounds mighty confusing, but quite frankly the appalling quality of many rural schools makes the language issue seem like a lesser problem. We (my school and the Rotary club) are involved with trying to improve matters at one of our local schools which had the distinction of a 0% pass for the final year pupils last year... one finds for instance that some FINAL year pupils have such a poor grasp of the alphabet that they are totally incapable of using a dictionary. It is going to take many years and much better systems and training than we have to sort out the appalling mess in education, especially for the rural poor. I always say the evil of apartheid was not the lack of the vote; it was the callous provision of a third rate education. This has not been helped by some very bad policies and decisions and dithering on the part of the government since 1994.

On a lighter note: in the southern hemisphere our summer holidays fall over Xmas and the new year!

Mark, our indigenous tree fern is called Cyathea dregei and is one of two indigenous tree ferns in SA, one of which grows here. I've seen them with stems over 4m (12ft) high. The self-sown ones on my parents' dam wall date back to - I think - 2000, when we had the sort of constantly wet year which would have enabled them to get established. Touch wood: we are heading for a similar year if the start of the season is anything to go by. We started our own regular records in 1984, and this is the 3rd wettest July-Oct since then, with 60mm (2 1/2 in) and 3 days to go if we are to break the record of around 250mm for this period.

The waterlilies stayed in all of this icy last winter and survived. Our minimum temperatures might drop to below zero regularly, but the pond never froze, and by 10am most days the temperature is over 10 degrees Celsius.

As far as the map goes, I am above the Ebenezer Dam, about where the 7 in the R71 is. It is a deliberately vague map as people are supposed to register at Kings Walden for their tours - however this is not made clear at all... we shall see what comes of it. The steps are at Kings Walden, a most beautiful garden about which I shall still post ONE DAY... as it is I have the last two months Garden Club visits to post on - the first I've joined in years, but I'm adament to get out more often.

So far this weekend I have taken over 200 pics. I've tons of pics to process, including the old-fashioned roses in the Rondel Garden, which I shall add to last year's post on the Rose Forum.

Meanwhile here is a teaser; a waterlily for Faith Very Happy

, a shot from the Anniversary Garden with this year's biggest single developement, the yellow and blue violas between the paving stones Razz

and a taste of the Rondel post to go in the Rose Forum - a most beautiful and elegant single rose of a quite unique red colouring... Cool

29 Oct '07 4:01 pm

Hi, Jack-

Thanks for the info. about how the language difficulties are being settled! It's strange to hear that when a few years ago I enquired about the possibility of teaching in S.A. and was told that in order to teach there, one had to speak at least 4 of the many languages! So I gave up on it. For one thing, I could NEVER learn that "click" sound in one of them, and it the others were anywhere as difficult to pronounce, it just wasn't feasible, even though I learned German and Russian in university! By the way, I've now forgotten almost all of both of them, and I'm noticing that the same is slowly happening to my knowledge of French since I so seldom speak it here now that I'm out of the school system!

The new pictures were grand! We have yellow violets growing wild in the forests as well as mauve ones, but few, if any blue ones. Back East there are white ones as well and, of course, the Labrador variety with the reddish leaves.

Our local wild water lilies are all yellow-flowering although people grow many others in ponds.

By the way, it's raining again! This is becoming depressing! Sad

All the best!

gordonf

29 Oct '07 6:27 pm

How stupid a response, Gordon. Had you been Afro-American and only spoke Hip-Hop, they might have welcomed you with open arms. Crying or Very sad

Sometimes I weep for my country.

Last night I had a fascinating discussion with one of the most interesting people I've ever met. He was (the only white) economic adviser to Mugabe in the early days of Zimbabwean independance, a PhD, a creative and original thinker, seeer of the broad picture, horribly liberal by colonial standards, an idealist. To this day there is not an ounce of bitterness in him it seems. And today, back in South Africa, he is involved with grassroots economic developement through NGOs promoting local trade and markets - the African version of "cutting down on food miles" and creating sustainable small businesses and farming. To hear him comment on the mistakes made in the new South Africa which were NOT made in Zimbabwe is quite depressing - especially the extent to which perfectly functional structures were destroyed and able civil servants replaced.

Allthough finally - to summerise incomplete conversations - he blames the collapse of Zimbabwe on the fact that monetary policies never took control of the 70s style inflation inherited from the old Rhodesia, but rather let it spiral out of control - and look where they are today! SA on the other hand, has an exemplary fiscal policy and one of the best ministers of finance in the world. The other, greater, cause is that Mugabe always had the attitude of 'I am the state' and thus lost contact with reality at an early stage. Today Zimbabwe, which I've been told is god's own country, the best and easiest farming in the world, is a wreck, its people scarred by 40 years of conflict. And we are hoping that megalomania does not raise its ugly head in our leaders, present and future. So far so good, but white (and much of black) South Africa IS jittery.

So - we withdraw into the sanctuary of the garden. The vagaries of the weather and assorted pests are mild when compared to the imponderables of African politics...

30 Oct '07 12:08 am

Only a few day absent, and look what I've lost!!

Hey , Jack!! I adore everything here! Dogs, plants, bloomers, captures, AND texts, especially your latest analysis on the Black Continent policies!!

To start with the doggies snoozing on the sofa!! Aren't they cuties!! This is THEIR sofa, I guess...And that exhausted Abbey!! I LOVED this capture!

And going on with all your plant treasures! I am amazed by the water-Lillies, cause it is the first time I think you post them!! They are THE perfect models, as far as I know...And the proof, your close-ups/macros, already shown!! Excellent!

And , then, this political analysis! Thank you SO much , Jack, because I am VERY interested in the Black Continent, and I just can't stand all these horrible things that go on in there, in the past and the present-- apart from the present S. Africa, of course! Is there a book that you propose to me to learn more?? I mean, in the same written speech you use in your own interesting text , not in any high and difficult academic language...I just need to learn and understand certain things here...

30 Oct '07 12:29 am

There is an Afrikaans song about October being the most beautiful of months... As I write this the scent of roses wafts in from my Penelope and Jacques Cartier bushes outside... life is good...

30 Oct '07 1:19 am

Oh, Jack!! What Beauties you just posted!! And SUCH splendid, joyful captures!! They all pass to me the joyful and uplifting October atmosphere of your garden!! The Rosemary Border capture and White Garden one are so lovely compositions!

Southern Spring

Too Exotic for Words!!

Aaaaaah

Hello Jack

Thank you all

'Shoot yourself in the foot' African style

My God!! I've lost A LOT here!

More walks

Marvelous captures!!