Summer on Sequoia

16 Jan '08 5:23 am

Well, Jack, I had a lot of catching up to do on your posts. You are doing amazing things with that new camera. You are definitely leaving me in the dust. I too was "gobsmacked" with that photo of your hillside Canna bed. Maybe I should consider such a bed on the steep hillside that fronts my property along the highway. It is too steep to mow, thus it looks messy most of the summer. I had thought to do a bed of grasses and other draught tolerant plantings there because there is no source available to keep it watered.

Also, that beautiful orange climber is stunning. I love it's name as well because it is so fitting the first impression of a shy flower with its pendant habit. So modest indeed for such a lovely thing. Thanks for all the lovely views of your gardens and those encountered on your travels of late.

16 Jan '08 7:47 am

And specially for you and everyone else in the North feeling colourless, these close-ups I photographed of a grass which seems to be around all-over the world...

All my life I have loved the late light falling through the rooigras - or red grass - Melinus repens. One often sees it as you drive along and arriving home this afternoon I stopped to photograph it at my entrance. The camera was set on vivid colour, but for the rest it is unedited and unenhanced, only cropped. I am thrilled with these macros!

I start with a rather dull pic of the 'actual view' before moving up as close as I possibly could - and then some more...

16 Jan '08 4:02 pm

What a great contrast with all the fresh green about. The light on the macros is great. I wonder if the seedheads might be a nuisance for the dogs. We have a weed here -is it everywhere as it seems?- whose seed heads we call foxtails. These actually corkscrew into the flesh. When we first got Fletcher he had one in his stomach area. The vet found a hole where it had worked in. I held fletcher very still while he fished around through the hole and under his skin until he found the thing.

16 Jan '08 4:26 pm

This is one of the gentlest of grasses, Mark. You hardly notice them until the sun is caught in their soft hairs. Each seed is only about 3mm long (1/8 inch). I've heard of foxtails and seeds corkscrewing, but never come across them. However I need to get drugging tabs for Doubly, whose forequarters are beautiful, but whose rear is dreadlocked... he won't allow you near his jewels with a comb or a pair of scissors! We have a few really horrid weeds for long-haired dogs!

21 Jan '08 4:34 pm

Mind's going...
Could have sworn I'd posted this pic of the cannas...

21 Jan '08 6:43 pm

I've never made one happy. Yours must get good drainage. Do they need regular watering, extra feeding, lots of sun? I probably deprive mine of water too much.

21 Jan '08 10:42 pm

Yep, they are keen feeders, although these have done very well since planting 3-4 years ago on only an annual addition of fertiliser. They are on a steep northwest-facing bank - so hot and sunny, and well drained. And of course we have 1200mm (47 in) in an average year, mainly in summer when they grow and flower.

Since a power-outage has just cut off my school work I was busy with, lets add to this from the photos I took yesterday afternoon: some amazing support acts done by achillea seems to be the theme from the Upper Rosemary Border, which is lush, but not nearly as impressive as this time last year.

25 Jan '08 7:04 am

Oh, my good Jack!! What an uplifting photo-parade of your gorgeous babies!!! That last Mozart capture is SO captivating!!I am sure , you were feeling SO thrilled while you were close to them, taking their picture...

27 Jan '08 3:31 am

Thank you Jack for responding to the call with these lovely photos. I agree with Liza that you can almost smell the summer in your pictures.

29 Jan '08 6:45 am

Strictly speaking I should not post these pics in my Sequoia diary, as they are mostly not taken here. But they are from my immediate area. On Sunday the sun shone at dawn for the first time in months - midsummer wake-ups have been like autumn from a light point of view. Late afternoon I took a ride, culminating in a visit to a local marshy area I diarized last February. That was when I discovered the huge expanses of our local agapanthus, A. inapertus. I share a wonderful afternoon with you!

Thelast photo, Escarpment, is of the view that greeted me soon before arriving at the agapanthus. One looks south along the face of the escarpment. The highest point 1/3 from right, just sticking out above the front mountain, is Serala, the 2nd highest point in Limpopo province. The steep cliff on the far left of the mountain range, well over 120km away, is at Blyde Poort and Abel Erasmus Pass, which I wrote about last year. After all the rain the clarity was amazing!