Southern Spring

17 Oct '07 3:24 pm

Hi again, Jack!

Yes, it certainly appears as if spring is off to a very good start in your part of the world! That picture is so fresh looking! No dust on the leaves, eh? Here, you're so happy to get so much rain, and I'm deploring it! Today it rained most of the time, along with 60km winds from the ocean (not a nice day!) The temperature was around 10 degrees C. for most of the day, but now it has cooled considerably as the sky cleared off around dusk and the low ground fog appeared everywhere. I bet it'll freeze in the early hours of morning!

So, enjoy spring, and I'll bundle up for an early winter!

Cheers

gordonf

18 Oct '07 11:22 pm

These are still weekend pics, with the mollis azaleas coming into their own. Hopefully I'll do a bit of catching up in the next days...

19 Oct '07 5:37 am

Azaleas look terrific in a natural setting such as yours,Jack.What a stunning display you have there.
Dixie.

19 Oct '07 2:27 pm

What a wonderful collection of azaleas you have, Jack! I especially like the golden Mollis and the Flame mollis ones. I assume that the tree with the wonderful purple-red leaves in "Misty Morn" is a Japanese maple? That's a wonderful picture!!

There are lots of Clematis montana plants around here, but, much as I'd like to have one, they are just too aggressive for my small garden! Aren't they beautiful, though!

Cheers!

gordonf

19 Oct '07 5:13 pm

Looking at your latest postings I'm inclined to become a spring convert. I refer to an exchange between you and Liza in which I mostly sided with you in appreciating the subtler attractions of fall and winter over the over-popular, gaudy beauty of spring. Maybe I was too rash. I mean .. look at your latest photos. Especially after cleansing your palate with a dose of fall color with a chaser of winter's bare tree limbs, what can be better than to sink your eyes into a sight like these latest? Ring the bells! Let the neighbors know: Spring is back! Well, for you anyhow. We still need to cleanse our palates up here. (Still hung over from the excess of summer.) Enjoy!

19 Oct '07 6:44 pm

I must admit, I realise - for the ten thousandths time - how priviliged and how blessed I am to live where I do and to have had the opportunity to enhance what I found with a garden...

Here is a pic I left out by accident. I am standing with my back to the white azaleas on the left of 'Misty Morn' and 'Before the light hits the water' Immediately in front of the lens are first a red and then a green dissected Japanese maple, visible as blobs of colour in the other shots - they are (heavy names for such delicate mini-trees)Acer palmatum dissectum and A.p.d. atropurpureum.

Beyond them are the yellow mollis azaleas and then the white, and above A.p. atropurpureum

20 Oct '07 11:58 am

Hi, Jack- That's another wonderful picture today! But I seem to have misplaced your address, so I haven't been able to send the seeds to you. Could you please send it to me again at : gordonf@email.com ?

Thanks-gordonf

20 Oct '07 8:30 pm

Dear Jack, I was once more enchanted by your lovely Azaleas! And your beautiful pond's captures! Any more good news on visiting your garden by the public??

I LOVED your doggies' photos on the General Chat section!!

20 Oct '07 9:46 pm

Yet another gently wet night. I shall get stats when I take my laundry up to the big house presently...

I looked out and felt that the heaviness of early summer green has really arrived - the lush, leafy, London-park quality that we only get in exceptional years, when the ballet of unfurling leaves and elongating twigs is sustained by an orchestration of soft light and light rain...

How's that for getting poetic? Hope the mundane touch of getting the laundry done takes the edge off the excess!

Here is a detail shot showing what I mean. Clockwise from the very bottom left corner, the main plants are: two tree ferns, the lower self-sown. They are Cyathea dregei, bigger and more robust than the Australian ones, with more presence but less grace than them. However it transplants with difficulty and is more particular about climate, so that in most of SA the Australian version is more common in gardens. Across the water the tall tree is Alnus cordata(the Italian Alder); to its right an indigenous Combretum erythrophyllum, the River Bush Willow - supposedly a prize, in my garden a non-entity; to its right first a green, then a read hazel (Corylus avellana). Above and beyond them an indigenous thicket which includes also Philedelphus - Mock Orange - (for the scent around this time!) and a Hawthorn. The feathery pale green shapes at 12 o'clock are two Bird cherries on either side of the road. (Prunus padus, which I've mistakenly called P. avium in the past; a forgivable mistake, I hope!) Below them is a wych elm (Ulmus glabra), a mound of pale green; and immediately below that, on this side of the dam, the Acer palmatum or Japanese maple which forms the focal point of my view. The darker green of Populus simonii, the Chinese poplar, reaches the top of the frame, and by early autumn displays an elegant steeple-shaped skeleton. To its right are the still somewhat sparse leaves of the most beautiful liquodambers in the world! (He said modestly.) Below them and to the right of the maple are white- and red-flowered Cornus florida (dogwoods), as well as an indigenous tree, Rhamnus prinoides, sometimes also called a dogwood! Below them on the path to the jetty, are a variety of shrubs including a particularly fine Viburnum opulus now very visible, coming into full flower, which retains its red berries well into late summer. I found it some 1200km from here at Hogsback, the place with the closest climate to our own in the whole of SA! There are also red and green berberis, white and pink roses and Abelia 'Francis Mason' in this border. The roses are 'Aunty May' which I am still trying to identify, Rosa centifolia moscosa, the common moss rose (which flowers beautifully here but has produced perhaps 10 flowers in 10 years in the Rondel Garden!) and Quatre Saisons Blanc Mousseux, a (somewhat) repeat-flowering white Damask rose. All are wonderfully scented. The foreground is a thicket of indigenous shrubs which really should have been cut to the ground to rejuvenate this last winter. It consists mainly of the grey-leaved and yellow-flowered Helichrysum splendidum.

21 Oct '07 6:01 am

Wow Jack, what a wonderfully detailed description of a photo. I had to enlarge the photo to see all the detail you were describing and then I couldn't see the description so this will take some study. You are indeed blessed in your surroundings. The reflection of azaelias in the dam is magical. I am happy that you are finding time to notice and enjoy all this surrounding beauty. Too often, we become distracted with the details of everyday living and let the magic of spring slip by us unnoticed.

Peotry in your words is most welcome as an accompaniment to the peotry of your photographs.

Southern Spring

Spring Green

Mollis azaleas

Spring beauty

Azaleas & Maples

Spring convert.

Thank you all

Help!

More enchanting Azaleas!

Saturday morning

Heavy with Leaves