Sub-tropical plants and gardens

4 Mar '07 9:06 pm

I have long been meaning to take you on a tour to the sub-tropics and show you the amazing gardens below the mountain. Our Pride of Indias – the closest we have to tropical colour – and the knowledge that the glorious pink and purple tibouchinas are in flower (surely the most harmonious combinations of colours coming together on a grand scale possible – no wait: what about Bougainvillea growing into Jacaranda… mmm: must find the photos I took the October I returned home after six months in Europe, when couldn’t believe the exuberance of it all!)

Well, I took my camera along on a visit to my Uncle Piet and Auntie Corrie. That was three weeks ago. Since then I have been back, under sad circumstances, for my uncle passed away – quietly, at 80, after a good life – and I spent the first night before the family arrived with my aunt. I had the chance at first light to supplement the previous week’s photos.

Auntie Corrie is my beloved aunt, who gave me the ‘Auntie Corrie rose’, the pride of my Rondel Garden, from this very garden where it had grown for heaven knows how long, gently suckering away. They live about ten kilometers from us, but they are halfway down the mountain with spectacular views to the east. They have no frost – in fact minimum temperatures are above 5˚ and they receive 20% more rain than we do, and their summers are correspondingly hotter. So theirs is really a sub-tropical garden, even though they can also grow many of the more temperate plants that we know.

But I’ll let the plants speak for themselves: the Pride of Indias were photographed here, the rest in Auntie Corrie’s garden. I’ll follow up when the opportunity arises with more photos of the sub-tropical gardens of our area…

5 Mar '07 8:04 am

Thank you for sharing your lovely experience, dear Jack! All the plants and pictures are splendid!

6 Mar '07 4:49 am

Dear Jack,

I am sorry to hear of the loss of your Uncle Piet. He sounds like a very gentle old soul and I am sure he will be missed.

The photographs of tropical foliage and flowers are beautiful. I was especially pleased to see all the Tibouchina photos. I have one that I have grown in a pot for about eight years now. It is the purple variety and I love when it blooms on my deck in summer. I have found it very easy to propogate by rooted cuttings, so I have quite a few growing in my greenhouse now. They are my insurance in case I ever lose the big one. I can't grow them outdoors here because they are frost tender, but I have seen large ones growing in California. They are beautiful shrubs.

6 Mar '07 11:59 am

Also sorry about your Uncle Piet.

All your photos are beautiful, but the Bauhinia blakeana is just splendiforous (and now my current wallpaper Very Happy

).

6 Mar '07 4:18 pm

I'm sorry to read of the loss of your Uncle Piet, Jack!

Thanks for sharing these gorgeous images of sub-tropical plants/flowers! My favourite is the Red Flag with its impressive rich-red sepals in lovely contrast with its starry white red-centered flowers! I've seen this beauty at a local nursery late last year and was very tempted to add to our garden, but prevented by hubby who felt that we already have too many red flowers? Crying or Very sad

24 Mar '07 6:33 pm

I've heard of the African Tulip tree and I understand it grows in San Diego. So I'll definitely look for one the next time I get there. You must have an incredibly benign climate. Do you get no frosts? Are the tibochinas native to Africa too? I think some come from South America. I guess it wouldn't be too surprising to find some overlap if the continents used to be connected. I really like the color of the "giant pentas". Thanks so much for sharing.
-Mark

6 Apr '07 9:52 pm

Thanks all, for your comments!

Mark - where I am we have very heavy frost and up to minus 7 degrees measured (Celsius - I think about 18 F)However I am at the bottom of a valley on the top of a mountain (if that makes sense)where the air in winter slowly sifts down at night, getting ever colder. My rainfall is high (1200mm/47in ave.) and mainly summer, but there are regular mists all year. The altitude is near 6000ft. I am on the inside edge of an escarpment which goes all around SA and yes - the climate is about as benigh as it gets in SA. On the opposite slope, and dropping down to under 2000 ft is the sub-tropical lowveld, where it gets unbenignly hot. It is on that slope, about 10km away, I photographed the trees, and there they don't go below 5 degrees, about 9 degrees above freezing F if I remember correctly from my distant pre-metric youth! However just a few 100m up the contour from my house frost is almost unheard of - my neighbours grow camellias and magnolias like I can only dream of!

7 Apr '07 5:18 am

Looking back over these photos I'm still most intrigued by the giant pentas, the african tulip tree and the tibouchina granulosa. I wonder if all of these tolerate your yearly frosts. I know the african tulip is prized in San Diego (our extreme southwest corner of the state on the border with Mexico). In an earlier post of yours I really liked a shot you'd taken across a lake to where (I think) you live. I think having a big enough patch of water to catch the reflection of the sky and opposite shore would be a great feature for a garden.

I was intrigued by your description of living at the bottom of a valley on top of a mountain. Having viewed many of your photos I will not say this does not make any sense. Africa has so much interesting topography that I'm inclined to think it is possible.

I live in the flats of Berkeley. The hills around here are more well-to-do and do boast banana belt micro climates where the cold air slides down the hill (to us).

I will look back over Christopher's posts. I have so many posts I would like to look back on but find it hard to make time even for what is current. Well, I'd rather have more things that I want to do than the time needed to do them than the reverse problem.

I envy you step-son-in-law. If I were a young man I might well look at a career in garden design. You know that garden I just posted pictures from near Philadelphia, Chanticleer, offers an internship. It is the most cutting-edge garden horticulturally that I know of, and have the resources to carry out a lot of things. He might check them out at their website, which I got by googling "Chanticleer garden".

Time to walk the dogs before we have to desert them for the day to visit my father-in-law. Adios!

7 Apr '07 5:58 am

Hi Mark!
I loved your Chanticleer post and agree that it is very cutting edge. When I first glanced over it I thought it was West Coast because of that - but on closer inspection there is a subtlety of colour and texture that I associate with the very best British gardening and I find it less New World than I thought. Namibia is above all an arid climate, and so the overall effects are more architectural and 'harsh' - something I can see in parts of your garden, and which would make sense in the average South African garden, where the English Country Cottage look is much more what people strive towards. I love the Prairy Style look in the last (?) Chanticleer photo where the informal steps descend the hillside. I do believe it is the single most important development in garden design of the last 50 years.

27 Apr '07 8:09 pm

Here are some more trees and things from the much much warmer lowveld - to repeat what I've said before, even a few 100 meters can make a difference to minimum temperatures around here and a few kilometers huge differences to climate. The trees to date in this post grow on my aunt's property halfway down the montain towards the lowveld.

Now we go right down into the lowveld. In fact last Saturday I was master of ceremonies at the wedding of an ex colleague of mine, a truly beautiful and talented girl I look upon as my younger sister. Truth be told I was horrified when I first realised I am older than her parents. She got married at a wonderful resort 150 odd km from here, with the resounding name of Moholoholo Ya Mati, at the mouth of the Blyde River Canyon, the largest 'green canyon' in the world, i.e. non-desert and third in size overall to the Grand Canyon in the USA and the Fish River Canyon in Namibia. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics there (other than the indigenous water lilies) but I intend to go back with friends and stay for a weekend, as it is all quite spectacular!

What is clear from these pics is how high the mountains are when seen from the lowveld. When seen from the highveld on the opposite side they are more like hills. The Blyde River has cut a gorge into the escarpment some 30 or more kilometers long. We took a ride up a mountain pass and through a tunnel to the vantage point with the waterfall. Where I live the mountain is somewhat lower and softer, so that much of it is forested – pines, gums and indigenous afro-montain forests – and we don’t see such impressive rock formations.

After the waterfall we turn back towards home. At the foot of our own pass - Magoebaskloof - I eventually after years photograph the best example I know of one of the most beautiful of all flowering trees... but that must wait for another post - hopefully this afternoon!