Summer on Sequoia

9 Mar '08 7:32 am

Your photography is superb as usual Jack, I have just caught up from about 4 pages ago!
From the always appreciated and stunningly coloured aggies through your macros with their hidden surprises Cool

to your last post with the hilltops which always makes the spirits soar, each pic is perfect!

Fabulous!

21 Mar '08 9:28 pm

Your comments make me feel better about this rather aimless summer thread. I feel as though I did NOTHING of value in the garden all season.

And today's pic shows that soon I should start on my autumn diary. Across the dam the first maple is now really showing glorious colour. And today - Easter Friday - I shall start collecting and pressing autumn leaves. I've been asked to do this for my godmother's 85th birthday party in July. What an honour to know I'll be contributing substantially to the festiveness of the tables... and at 85 she's autumnal, not wintery. What a compliment to her!

22 Mar '08 2:07 am

The first fall color stands out like fire or blood against all that green. Looking at it up close I am really struck by the great variety in growth habit and texture among your trees. There is one tall narrow one in particular -toward the right- that really stands out. I wonder what it is. Funny but I've never really noticed this so clearly before even though I know that you and your father have planted many trees here. The overall scene is still one of harmony and feels natural.

As for working hard during your summer, relax. Isn't that the time to enjoy the fruits of your labors? Besides you can always complain that it is too warm to work. (Works for me.) Other than sprucing up for guests by deadheading and path sweeping I don't find I have so much that really needs doing then. Of course, one can always start or finish a project when school is out but your classes are still going aren't they?

As Cajun would remind us, don't forget to stop and smell the roses.

22 Mar '08 7:34 am

Tall, narrow, to the right… a difficult one to ID! So here, Mark, is an attempt at comprehensiveness!

The background is bluegum on the left, pinus patula on the right. I don’t know much about the gum species, P. patula is the main pine grown commercially on ‘the mountain’; a beauty, with particularly long leaves. The tree in the middle breaking the horizon is a ‘mother pine’ – a self-planted patula perhaps 70 years old, progeny of the earliest plantations in the area. Those breaking the horizon to the left are huge gums, perhaps 100 years old. The tallest tree in South Africa – taller than our own forest giants which could be 2000+ years old, is a max 130 year old gum tree some 10km (6 miles) away.

Starting at the Carpet Garden on the very left, the observation point looking across the dam to my house, there is an Acer palmatum ‘atropurpureum group’ (purple Japanese maple). Behind it some Betula pendula, beautiful for their first 10 years, now moribund, and behind that, pale green with a pronounced tip, a Liqoidamber styraciflua planted by my partner Louis when we planted the arboretum 10 or 11 years ago. To the right of the acer, greyish and billowing, is Salix matsudana ‘Tortuosa’ (corkscrew willow, much less tortuous in maturity); behind it an English oak (Quercus robur), Pin oak (Q. palustris – the tallest) and another English Oak behind which the pale tip of an Elm I can’t identify any closer just sticks out. The oaks I planted about 27 years ago when we first started developing the valley. (‘Gardening’ would not quite be the word!) The orange leaves belong to an Acer sold to me as A. pseudoplatanus which it definitely is not. With a bit of imagination you can see the first yellow leaves peek out beyond the right-hand English oak; they belong to the ‘other’ A.p. – it colours later, differently, and has very different leaves. Welcome to Africa. (Both, by the way, are vastly superior trees to Acer pseudoplatanus, I have learnt after studying A.p. in Europe) In front of the mother pine and almost invisible until they turn and drop their leaves, then replace them, are two Mexican oaks – Q. ??; I’ve never doubted this – now I can’t identify them. Will research this one! The greyish tree in front of them is Alnus cordata, the Italian Alder. To its left the small round tree is supposed to be the swamp Cyprus, Taxodium distichum, a decidious conifer which turns a rich cinnamon colour. I suspect from its near evergreen habit (not to mention its unusual rounded shape!) that this might be T. mucronatum; they are not easy to differentiate when young. To the right of the alder mainly indigenous trees are visible, although if one stands further to the left some fascinating trees, including acers, prunus, elms and nyssas can be seen.

On this side of the dam, from the left, a self-sown tree fern (Cyathea dregei) with another, transplanted with great effort behind it. The grey shrubs are the endemic helicrysum with beyond it, amongst several less noticable shrubs, left to right, the rounded shape of a Japanese maple, two varieties of Cornus florida (flowering dogwood) and a Parrotia persica (Persian Ironwood) whose vertical branches are beginning to show colour. The bright green is again Liquidamber styraciflua.

To end – a photo to prove the whole household is now in holiday mode – the dogs seen from the sleeping loft midmorning yesterday!

23 Mar '08 1:39 am

Jack, this latest early autumn picture is so beautiful and makes me wish to be a barefoot little girl again walking along the grassy verge or maybe dipping my toes in the dam. Notice that I am leaning the proper names for bodies of water in S. Africa.

23 Mar '08 5:33 am

You must know more about trees than most other gardeners ever will. It's pretty rare to be able to devote so much space for them, not to mention the constant view you get of them from the house.

I think the tall narrow one I had in mind is behind "(t)he greyish tree in front of them is Alnus cordata, the Italian Alder. Now that I look more thoroughly to follow your naration I think it isn't so unique afterall. There seem to be several more in the upper left corner of the photo, above the birchs. Being so narrow, I assumed these to be some garden-originated tree but maybe they are just the gums (Eucalyptus?). By the way, are there Eucalyptus native to Africa? I tend to think of them all coming from Australia, but perhaps that is not such a great distance from Southern Africa .. as the continents drift.

By the way, your Japanese Maples are of good size and have great color. Looking good!

29 Mar '08 11:31 pm

"Behind the Alnus" - breaking the horizon is the mother pine with the Mexican Oaks in front of it. Slightly to the right and in the background is a very narrow dead gum tree with a wild creeper growing up it. Does that answer your question, Mark? And yes, gums are only from Australia, but were planted by the earliest settlers across the country, so that many in our area are now well over 100 years old. They are also grown commercially here - hense the stand in the left background. Awful trees because of their mess and their habit of killing the soil. I dream of one day removing all from my farm... (says he, having planted several for ornamental purposes and having got great joy from some on the farm...)

Faith - I'm impressed! I in turn am trying to think of it more as a pond, but old habits die hard! Liza in particular objects to the 'ugly word' dam

30 Mar '08 12:20 am

What a gorgeous place. Love the doggie pic too.

30 Mar '08 12:22 am

There are a number of plants one can enjoy that are politically incorrect. I've got a smaller, yellow Pampas Grass relative that I adore but which would send some folks off the deep end to see growing in my garden because its larger relative is horribly invasive as well as hard to remove without explosives (only a slight exageration).

I've heard that about the gums that they make the soil around them uninhabitable for other plants. At least you can rightfully claim to have inherited them. Around here there are many stands of them crowding out native trees in natural areas which are virtually impossible to remove. They also increase the danger from fires to people living near by.

I've just made it to Spring Break and am looking forward to sinking some time into the garden. I've got a to-do list that would make Moosey proud and a week to check off at least part of it. I also look forward to catching up here and finding out what all I've missed out on.

31 Mar '08 3:39 pm

We are not going to have a 'longest list of things to do' competition, are we? Check out Christopher's seed list and think again. Sorry to randomise this thread and join it tenuously (?) to another.

I've always liked the word 'fall' to describe autumn - unfortunately no-one here (in New Zealand that is) really has a clue if I try to use it, and they think I'm describing some dreadful old-lady gardening accident. Jack - enjoy your fall, won't you!

Summer on Sequoia

Thank you, Pumpkin!

What a fascinating collection of trees

Tree details

Great Autumn picture

Thanks for the tour Jack!

Gums and dams (dam gums?)

Guilty pleasures

Falling into Autumn