Country Diary - The Works of Nature

I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence? 

- James Thomson

Just across the road from us are a couple of stray Oak trees on the pavement, a few left over from an era when it demarcated someone's drive-way entrance leading to their farm. Scrounging beneath them and picking up acorns is something I really enjoy doing. This sketch was of a find a couple of summers ago and I still have the acorn but the leaf has since dried and crumbled.

The acorn may be small, but it holds a world inside. The nut consists of three parts: the cup (or cupule), a tough outer shell, and a kernel. The kernel is made up of two fat-rich seed leaves called cotyledons which enclose a tiny embryo at the pointed end of the nut. Acorns serve as an essential food for animals and in some cultures, for humans. Acorns contain large amounts of protein, carbohydrates and fat, making them a favored food of many animals. It is said that Oak trees don't produce acorns until they are 50 years or older, but I doubt that, as I had an Oak in my previous garden and it produced acorns within 10 years.

Because acorns are too heavy to travel very far from their parent tree, the oak is dependent on animals such as birds and squirrels to disperse its seed. According to one source, the odds of one acorn actually growing into an oak tree are very small--less than 1 in 10,000.

Opposite the two old Oaks are a few Pine trees and I've got a bag full of cones collected from under them. They look beautiful sprayed gold or white for Christmas ornaments and I also use them as bird feeders in my garden, coating them with peanut butter and sprinkling with seeds or pushing in some minced meat for the Robin and Shrikes. I've been meaning to sketch them for quite some time now but am a bit daunted by all the different spikes I'll have to draw to scale! It's next on my list...

.

Mother Nature is awfully ingenious

Mother Nature is awfully ingenious; she has come up with quite a few methods to keep bugs away and plants healthy and thriving. It turns out that plants, like people, prefer certain company.

One of the great things about gardening is that in some ways your garden can take care of itself. But there are a few things that you can do to make your work a little easier. One of these things is to select plants for your garden that will help control insect pests.

Sunflowers (Helianthus) are great companions and beautiful throughout the garden. Plant with Cucumbers, beans, and vining plants to provide a trellis. They are hardy and a great trap crop for aphids and other pests. They typically produce plenty of their own seeds to use next year.

W&N watercolour on Bockingford - ©Maree Clarkson 

Vibrant and strong, Sunflowers are symbolic of adoration.

I see you there in glory shining bright,
Following the sun and its path of light.
Standing tall above all others in the field,
You grow, conquer, and do not yield.
The little birds take great delight
In playing round you, from day to night.
With your petals of yellow and leaves of green
How very easily you are seen!
~Extract from 'Poem to a Sunflower' By Katherine R. Lane 

I use sunflowers as a way to draw aphids away from my other plants. Ants move their colonies onto sunflowers. The sunflowers are tough enough that they suffer no damage. Sunflowers also attract wasps, which are great insects to have around as they prey on a variety of harmful insects.

These hardy, easy-to-grow annuals brighten up any garden with their large, dramatic heads and petals. Sunflowers can grow anywhere from two to fifteen feet tall depending on the variety, and their seeds can even be harvested and enjoyed as a delicious snack.

A Sunflower that took root on our smallholding just outside the garden fence last summer. I usually wait for these to mature and then pick the head to give to my Cockatoo, Danny. It keeps him busy for hours!

Sunflowers thrive in warm to hot climates with full sunshine during the day. Climates with long hot summers are perfect for growing sunflowers. Sunflowers prefer a slightly acidic to somewhat alkaline soil so they grow easily in my garden which has mostly an acidic soil. Many sunflowers just appear in my garden, obviously seeds dropped by birds, but I also sow seeds from time to time. Choose a site in full sun on the south side of the garden (in South Africa), so the tall plants won't shade your other flowers or vegetables. Sunflowers aren't fussy about soil but the one thing that can harm them is flooded soil, so water sparingly or have a well-drained spot for them. Plant the large seeds no more than 1 inch (2.5cm) deep and 4 to 6 inches (10-15cm) apart in well-dug, loose soil after it has thoroughly warmed, from mid-august to late October.

If you plan to harvest seeds, keep an eye out for ripeness. The back of the flower head will turn from green to yellow and the bracts will begin to dry and turn brown; this happens about 30 to 45 days after bloom and seed moisture is about 35%. Generally, when the head turns brown on the back, seeds are usually ready for harvest.

Sunflowers are virtually as care free as their smiling faces suggest. However, they are sometimes infected with fungal diseases such as mildews and rusts. Downy Mildew causes mottling and pale areas on upper leaf surfaces and a fuzzy mold growth on their undersides. Eventually the leaves wither and die. The oldest leaves are usually infected first. Downy mildew is most likely to occur on cool damp nights and warm humid days. It spreads by means of tiny spores carried to plants and soil by wind and rain or transmitted by garden tools. It will not kill a mature plant; it just mars its appearance. I normally just leave it unless it's a serious infection, then I remove the plant or spray it with a home-made mix of dishwashing liquid mixed with some tobacco in water. This seems to keep it at bay.

Wit & Wisdom

- Need a bird seeder? Save dry heads and set them out in winter.
- Save thick sunflower stems and dry them for winter kindling.
- Interesting Fact: An anonymous buyer paid over $39 million in 1987 for Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers.
- Where sunflower seeds are regularly used as bird feed, toxins from the accumulated seed hulls eventually kill the grass below. Harmless to animals or people, the toxins eventually biodegrade in the soil.

The start of beauty - She will be beautiful one day – turning her yellow face to the sun – gracing the landscape with sunshine A young Sunflower on my smallholding. 

A close-up of a sunflower in my garden

24th October 2013 - Stray seeds taking root in my garden 

29th October 2013 - Already 1.5m tall - Soon these two sunflowers will be 3meters tall and I'll be able to harvest the seeds for my bird feeders. 

 12thNovember - already 2m tall - can't wait for the flowers!

::

Arum lilies after the winter

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.”
- Georgia O’Keeffe

Wit varkoor (Afrikaans); intebe (Xhosa) ihlukwe (Zulu)
Family: Araceae (Arums, Anthurium, Caladium and Philodendron)

What could be more beautiful than a creamy white arum lily – whether in your garden, a pot, or the wild? Arum lilies (Zantedeschia) are native to southern Africa from South Africa north to Malawi and grow well in full sun near water, but prefer a semi-shaded environment when there’s no permanent water nearby.

The faintly scented flowers attract a multitude of crawling insects and bees, which pollinate the flowers in exchange for food, each one in its own way. The white crab spider, for instance, visits the flower to eat the insects. It does not spin webs, but makes good use of its paleness as an effective camouflage in the spathe.

Porcupines are crazy about the large rhizomes and will savagely destroy whole colonies of arum lilies. The good thing is that thanks to this brutal pruning, the plants regenerate fresher than ever with the most amazing flowers. If I had porcupines, it would be worth the massacre!

My Arums look like the porcupines have been at it, but it's only the chickens!

Zantedeschia is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Araceae, native to southern Africa from South Africa north to Malawi. The Zantedeschia species are poisonous due to the presence of calcium oxalate. All parts of the plant are toxic, and produce irritation and swelling of the mouth and throat, acute vomiting and diarrhoea. However leaves are sometimes cooked and eaten. Who would believe that these beauties carry a deadly secret?

In the South-West of Western Australia, Z. aethiopica was introduced for horticulture. It has become a widespread and conspicuous weed of watercourses, heath, and wetter pastures. The so-called white calla is derived from Z. aethiopica. All varieties with flowers with shades of yellow, orange, red, purple are mainly derived from Z. albomaculata, Z. pentlandii and Z. rehmanni.

Did you know that the striking arum lily “flower” is actually many tiny flowers arranged in a complex spiral pattern on the central column (spadix)? The tiny flowers are arranged in male and female zones on the spadix. The top 7 cm are male flowers and the lower 1.8 cm are female. If you look through a hand-lens you may see the stringy pollen emerging from the male flowers which consist largely of anthers. The female flowers have an ovary with a short stalk above it, which is the style (where the pollen is received). The spadix is surrounded by the white or coloured spathe. According to Marloth, the whiteness of the spathe is not caused by pigmentation, but is an optical effect produced by numerous airspaces beneath the epidermis.

The common arum is found from the Western Cape through the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and into Limpopo Province in South Africa. It is evergreen or deciduous depending on the habitat and rainfall regime. In the Western Cape it is dormant in summer and in the summer rainfall areas it is dormant in winter. It will remain evergreen in both areas if growing in marshy conditions which remain wet all year around.

Although called the arum lily, it is neither an arum (the genus Arum) nor a lily (genus Lilium). But it is associated with the lily as a symbol of purity and these elegant flowers have graced many bridal bouquets.

 Arum lilies in my garden done in watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - Maree©

::