After a few weeks of South Easter wind blowing the summer in, we have had two lovely days of sunshine and cool breezes - Champagne Days.
I strolled through the garden to see how things are growing.
Agapanthus time has arrived and blue heads are nodding.
This is the third year that I have grown baby Agapanthus to sell. It will probably be the last year that I do it because sourcing soil to fill the pots is a problem and I don't want to pay for soil when I sell the plants so cheaply.
I have also grown some pomegranates from seed. I had planned to plant them all along a fence up at our plot but recently we were told that we had planted too many trees on our ground up there, so we have decided to draw the line. These will just have to grow here to a decent size and then perhaps I will sell them too.
I have not seen a loquat tree for years but recently came across one in a garden and have grown a few from seed. Who knows where these trees will eventually end up. Certainly not in this garden as I don't think the leaves enjoy the salt air.
A friend grew two Elderberry trees for us from cuttings.
I need a new, empty garden to fill!
Some plants to disguise an ugly neighbouring wall are starting to expand.
The driftwood will hopefully support a creeper. We are just waiting to see whether the neighbour is going to plaster the wall as they have done on their side. Notice the Wild Camphor on the right which we transplanted when we moved the retaining blocks. It seemed to have died but after a couple of months, has decided to give it another go and sprouted some new tentative leaves.
Do you remember what this little archway looked like after the retaining blocks were re-positioned? This mint scented fine-leaved plant grows like a weed and as you brush past it....mmmm...
I have promised Roy that I will harvest the seed from this fennel so as not to allow it to take over the garden. We once lived for two years on top of Simon's Town mountain where the fennel had taken over completely and was like an impenetrable jungle.
Little Oak-leaf lettuce offspring are coming up all over the garden - super!
Our neighbour across the road had a disastrous side-walk for about three years while the neighbour in front was renovating. After final completion of all the messy work recently, we redesigned the side-walk for him as a surprise on his recent arrival for summer from his home in Europe. He was ecstatic! The soil is incredibly sandy and dry. Once the plants expand over the rock mulch, it will look great. We planted easy growers like daisies, agapanthus, mint.
These Dragon Fruit plants have been growing from seed for the last 2.5 years. I am going to sell them now because they need to be planted in a suitable garden or hothouse, I think. I usually have to bring them into our sunroom in the winter and it is becoming a nuisance due to size and prickles.
We are in a quandary about this Norfolk Pine tree that was given to us about 25 years ago. This was in the days when we were ignorant of indigenous plant concerns. We deliberately kept it starved of water so that it would not grow too quickly but it has finally breached what is left of our view of the sea and now, what do we do? To chop it down completly seems too heartless and besides, the donor passed away a few years ago, so there is that sentimental link. Trim it, and in the process, create a deformed shape? Or leave it to grow into a giant and then let it be somebody else's problem when we downsize from this house ?
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The Baboons have been kept out of our village so successfully recently that we dared to hang up a bird-feeder in the tree again.
We await popular feathered patronage!
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