Random Harvest Newsletter Archive

As I sit here writing this newsletter I find it hard to believe that we are only a few weeks away from mid-winter.

I thought I was crazy to visit my friend in Bloemfontein in winter but here I am sitting in a really beautiful indigenous garden with Guinea Fowl scratching and the sun catching the flowers of the Bulbine and other flowers.  Heaven!

Creatures

New Stock of the beautiful life-like creatures is in. If you can’t have a real Guinea Fowl in your garden how about one of these.

Bulb Society Meeting

On Saturday, June 25th. At 2.00pm there will be a talk by Wilfred John Ascot on Crinums.  He is passionate about this truly beautiful genus of plants.  They have wondrous flowers and their ecology is interesting.

Everyone is welcome and tea and cake will be served.

This display is still looking really good.  Succulents give the garden amazing texture and colour especially at this time of year when other plants are hunkering down for the winter.

The insects and sunbirds really appreciate the bounty their flowers offer and are really a life saver for them.

The Aloe ciliaris are looking particularly beautiful at the moment.  The best part is that this scrambling Aloe grows in the shade and for those of you who, like me, went mad planting trees in the garden they are a welcome addition to the shade garden.

Even the dove is enjoying sunning itself in the succulent garden.

Cyrtanthus mackenii - Ifafa Lily (E); Ifafalelie (A)

This pretty little evergreen, bulbous plant grows in sun and semi shade.

There is a huge variation of colours and they come yellows, pinks, red and peach.

They make a beautiful border plant and are great as pretty container plants.

Felicia amelloides - Blue Marguerite (E)
This cheerful, delicate looking plant with its beautiful sky blue daisies is deceiving as it is really hardy and blooms almost all year round if you regularly dead head the plant.  It should not be over watered and prefers well-drained soil.

It offers food for butterflies and insects and keeps us smiling in our gardens as it is such a cheerful plant.

Carpobrotus muirii – Dwarf Sour Fig
This pretty spreading succulent bears masses of flowers and requires little care and attention. 

I personally prefer it to Carpobrotus edulis as it doesn’t get the dead bits in the centre as it spreads.  Each of these plants will spread about 1m diameter.

Othonna capensis – Othonna
This dainty spreading succulent groundcover with its pretty yellow daisy-like flowers is a favourite of insects and butterflies.  It can be used to cover a bank as an edge plant or even in a hanging basket.

Aloe castanea - Cat’s-tail Aloe (E), Katstertaalwyn (A)
This unusual Aloe with its bottle brush-type flowers makes a beautiful accent plant.  It has dark brown nectar which the birds love and also offers food for the bees in winter.

Aloe cryptopoda (wickensii) - Geelaalwyn (E)
Another lovely accent plant for the garden. 

This Aloe can have either red or yellow flowers and in some cases even bicoloured flowers. 

It looks particularly good planted in a container.

Aloe barberae (bainesii) - Tree Aloe (E)
This is a very large tree Aloe which makes a beautiful accent plant in bigger gardens. 

It you would like to have this beautiful plant in a small garden plant it in a container which will keep it to a controllable size.  I love the picture of the flowers against the winter sky.

Aloe hardyi - Penge Aloe (E)

We have a few of these rare and unusual Aloes. 

It is a cliff hanging plant and we have planted some of them up into hanging baskets which they seem to enjoy. 

They could be planted tumbling over a retaining wall or in a vertical wall.

Talking of the good work Jonathan has been doing – the chillies he planted have been just loaded with fruit.  I have never seen such beautiful chillies.  We have been pickling and bottling them.

Talking of moths this is the caterpillar of the Deaths Head Hawk Moth. 

I was watching David Attenborough’s Natural Curiosities and there was a program on how this moth robs bee hives of honey. 

Apparently it makes a sound similar to the queen bee and this fools the workers and they don’t attack the moth. 

They just sit by while it sips their honey.

Nature is amazing!

We also saw this amazing green moth Basiothia medea (Small Verdant Hawk).

I have been driving Mike mad trying to identify these moths – a steep learning curve for all of us.

Sometimes I think Random Harvest is the land of the weird….now I can confirm this!

My Mom made this raincoat for her Adenium so it didn’t get too wet and rot her plant. 

Very enterprising, I may have tried to cover the whole plant but not my Mom she only covered the important bit – the roots and allowed the rest of the plant to enjoy the rain.

The dam is looking beautiful and has been visited by an amazing variety of birds.  I saw a Giant Kingfisher for only the second time in my life at the dam.  Jeff and I nearly jumped out of our skins with excitement.

The Plovers have been enjoying the edges of the dam – perfect habitat for them.

We also saw Black Duck.  These ducks usually only inhabit streams and not still water like the dam.  I though it may have been that the dam was quite full after the rain.

Forgive the quality of the picture but this was a quick snapshot before they took off.

When driving down to the dam the grasses are looking magnificent with the low winter sun shining on them.

It is hard to believe just how dry and desiccated the grassland was at the beginning of summer when we had that heat wave and no rain.  How quickly nature regenerates herself?  It is such a blessing to live on a place where you can see the miracles of nature unfolding on a daily basis.

I see who the little devil is who is spreading the Syringa berries – it is the Black Collared Barbet!  I am not happy about him planting these alien seeds all over the place

It is always exciting when the Green Hoopoe decides to visit the bird feeding table in the nursery.

He comes to feast on the suet balls we put out.  I must say he is one of the most difficult birds to get a good picture of.

The creatures have been plentiful around the farm this month – and all of them very busy.

The bees are finding a bounty of food at the moment with all the plants that are blooming.  Just last month they were having a hard time finding enough food. 
These bees are on Crassula perfoliata.

Seeing a Golden Orbweb spider was another amazing moment. 

I haven’t  seen one for a few years. 

As you can see it caught a locust of which there seem to be more than normal in the grassland.

Jeff took this lovely picture of a Hover Fly visiting the flower of Kalanchoe thyrsiflora.

Trying to identify the weird insect sitting on the Deinbollia oblongifolia
(Dune Soapberry) has been a fruitless exercise.  I decided to just enjoy seeing it and not know what it is.  If you can identify it, please let us know – we’d love to find out what it is.

There are so many butterflies in the nursery, visiting mainly the Vygie flowers, and in the grassland it would take a whole newsletter just to talk about them all.

This one is a Yellow Pansy.

The yellow Halleria lucida (Tree Fuchsia) has been phenomenally beautiful this year.  I have never seen the flowers carried in such abundance.  Not only is it a sight to behold but also an irresistible magnet to the many creatures that visit it.  The Sunbirds and White Eyes are ever present in amongst the bounty offered by this tree.  That is not to mention the vast array of insects that have gathered to partake of the feast.

As soon as the berries are ripe we will have a different lot of birds taking up residence to gorge themselves on the bounty offered by this tree.

The play of sunlight on the plants and leaves are breath-taking at this time of year. One of my favourite things is to pass by the back of the office and see how the sunlight makes the building look as if it is on fire.