Agapanthus beauty

This past summer my Agapanthus praecox put up a beautiful show and the more I stole the flowers for vases, the more they produced.


This species makes excellent cut flowers. Cut flowers, whether purchased from the florist or cut from your own garden, will last much longer in the vase if the vase been cleaned with hot soapy water to eliminate bacteria and fungi and then rinsed thoroughly. Normally one would remove lower leaves from the stem so there will be none in the vase water, but Agapanthus have beautiful long, leafless stalks, making it an ideal flower for the vase.


Flowers are living things, and like us they need food for proper growth and healthy colour, especially in a vase, so do se a commercial flower preservative. You can also add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or bottled "Real Lemon," 1 tablespoon of sugar, and a 1/4 teaspoon of bleach in a quart of warm water. Add another 1/4 teaspoon of bleach to the vase every 4 days.

This evergreen indigenous species comes from the winter rainfall Western Cape and all-year rainfall Eastern Cape and shed a few of their old outer leaves every year and replace them with new leaves from the apex of the growing shoot. The deciduous species comes from the summer rainfall Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Swaziland, Free State, Lesotho, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Mozambique, and grow rapidly in spring with the onset of the rains, and then lose their leaves completely and lie dormant during winter.

Family: Agapanthaceae (Agapanthus family)
Common names: common agapanthus, blue lily (Eng.); bloulelie, agapant (Afr.); isicakathi (Xhosa); ubani (Zulu)

Life's treasured moments

A treasured moment - my Rattail Cactus flowering on a window sill

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Is there something wrong with my cycad?

Cycad - Cycas revoluta (Sago Palm)

I'm a bit worried. More than a bit actually. My Cycad (C. revoluta) is not looking so well. Above is a picture taken last winter, July 2015, and he was growing in leaps and bounds for the past year.

Over the past couple of weeks, however, I've noticed the branches flattening more and more, totally exposing the centre, which is usually hidden by all the leaves. Could it be dying? Maybe too much shade? It has been under this Celtis africana for 10 years now. The tree has obviously grown much bigger over the years, giving much more shade.

Or could it be a female getting ready to flower? Or maybe a male ready to produce a cone? But Sagos are like people... reproduction takes two - a male and a female. In late spring, a mature male Sago produces a golden cone, shaped like a giant pine cone which may grow over 2' tall.  A female produces a huge golden flower which slowly opens when it is fertile, then closes, and begins to produce viable seed if pollination from a male sago was successful.

I read somewhere that most Sagos must be at least 15-20 years old before they are mature enough to bloom, and they also must be well established in the garden or landscape. Usually they will have a 10" - 14" (30cm) diameter trunk and a leaf spread of 5' - 6' (2m).  My Sago is now 10 years old and still has no trunk.

I've been considering digging him up and moving him to full sun or planting him in a big pot, but apparently they do not bloom in a pot. And disturbing him by transplanting him means it will take a long time for him to get "established" again.

One website says, "Sagos grow in full sun, but adapt to outdoor shade or an indoor area which receives bright light or a few hours of morning or afternoon sun." And mine does get afternoon sun, more so in winter.

Every spring, my Cycad would produce new leaves, but this past spring (Sept 2015) there was nothing.

Can anybody help? If you have an explanation, I'd love to hear from you.

Maree

16 Signs You’re Dating A Gardener

1. He can’t stay over because he has to get up early. No really. He wants to be up at sunrise to start planting.
2. He wears overalls in a non-ironic way.
3. Her motto is “no truck, no luck.”
4. It looks like he’s growing a garden under his fingernails.
5. He gets a serious case of plant envy when he sees your plot.
6. She’d rather share her toothbrush than her hand trowel.
7. He only makes plans with you on rainy days.
8. Weekend road trips require stops at every native plant nursery along the way.
9. She blew you off to claim her spot at the community garden.
10. Compost and manure are considered appropriate dinner table conversation.
11. Her Instagram feed is just a bunch of blooms.
12. Dates before sunset are out of the question.
13. Attending lectures together at the horticultural society is her idea of quality time.
14. He thinks a romantic gift is one that he’s found in the garden section of Lowes.
15. “Your bed or mine?” does not mean he’s trying to get you between the sheets.
16. When you bring up the subject of kids, he says he’s only interested in raising seedlings.
    
    From OrganicLife
    
    
    

To bless this kind earth... and yourself

Now that we're over the worst of summer (and it really was the pits, with extreme heat-waves, temps in the 40℃'s and drought) and had some lovely rain to break the heat and drought, I'm enjoying time outside in my garden again. I just get absolutely cranky, and listless, when it gets that hot, and can't seem to get around to doing anything outside. But as we all know, we NEED to get outside, we need to spend time in nature, otherwise life becomes unbearable. Well, for me anyway. My plants and the birds in my garden are part of my family, and I feel as though I've lost track of what's going on in their lives. I just did the bare necessities during that heat, filling the water bowls and feed tables and the rest, like watering the garden, was left up to my trusty garden manger, Chrissie. I even thought of telling her to chat to the birds, because I wasn't getting round to it!

But my garden doesn't seem to have minded my absence. It's like a jungle out there after all the rain. Nature's revenge to neglect is that, when left undisturbed and given time, she will reclaim anything built by humanity. So basically, no need to feel guilty here, life winds a way.

 There's a pathway somewhere in there, totally covered now by Bulbine and Sword ferns.

Even the birds don't seem to have noticed my absence. No excitement or fluttering or welcoming twittering when I started spending time in the garden again. Maybe they were even pleased about not being constantly stalked by my camera. Eating and bathing and nesting carried on as usual, making me feel a bit unwanted...

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It's finally happened - and a strange phenomena

The dead White Karee in my garden that I've been threatening to cut down, has finally happened. The hold-up was that the birds absolutely loved it. They would catch the early-morning sun from the top branches and the Fiscal Shrike used it as her look-out for prey. But I think it started becoming a bit of a danger lately. Many a morning I would find broken branches on the lawn and all I needed was for it to fall over and cause a lot of damage.

So at the end of January we tackled the job. Solly started by first removing the lower branches and then he tackled the main trunk. We calculated that the distance to the pond fence was far enough for the very top branches not to damage it when it fell.

Timberrrrrrr!

Here it looks like Solly is bowing his head in a moment of silence for the fallen lady. I too sent up a silent little prayer, saying I'm sorry that she died but that we will remember her for ever.

As the tree came down, it hit a branch of the Acacia karroo next door. As I was checking for damage on the Acacia's branch and while we were removing the dead branches, I noticed something really peculiar. All the leaves on the Acacia branch were busy closing, and within minutes the whole branch up to the trunk had closed leaves.

Now I know Acacia trees pass on an ‘alarm signal’ to other trees when antelope browse on their leaves. When nibbled by antelope, the tree produces leaf tannin in quantities lethal to the browsers, and emit ethylene into the air which can travel up to 50 yards. The ethylene warns other trees of the impending danger, which then step up their own production of leaf tannin within just five to ten minutes. This is a defence mechanism against predators stripping them of all their foliage, causing them to die. So my tree obviously thought it was under attack from something and the defence mechanism immediately sprung into action. I checked some of my other Karoo's and noticed the same reaction on one of the trees about 10m away in the pond area. Amazing phenomena!

Then started the big job of reducing the branches to firewood and cleaning up the area.

It's amazing how hard the dead wood can be!

Almost finished, just the last part of the straight-up trunk and it's kudo's to a job well done! I decided to keep the stump for use as a feature somewhere in the garden.

And since the tree has gone, the Aloe zebrina at the base have doubled in size and are flowering profusely.

Change in a garden is inevitable. I often look back at previous seasons and marvel at the changes that take place from year to year. Some good, some not so good, like a tree dying, but life carries on and something dead makes place for new life.

Connecting with your bliss

The above pic is my 'Money plant' (as I know it, possibly Plectranthus verticilatus), intertwined with some ivy, hanging from a patio beam. The story goes that, if it dies, so does all your wealth. It's hanging outside on my patio and every winter I panic as I slowly see it die down but then, each spring, I rejoice as it springs back to life, thick and abundant, needing to be trimmed back every now and then. This winter I brought it inside, just in case.... (smile!)

Deepak Chopra said, "Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real." For me connecting with my bliss means pottering in the garden, feeling the rich soil between my fingers and nothing beats the feeling of actually holding the garden hose and watering the plants in stead of relying on an automated sprinkler system.

 

 

It's while you're watering that you notice all sorts of things - a dead plant, a mound of topsoil indicating the the mole is back in the garden again, aphids on the roses or red spider on the aloes. It also delights my senses to be "washing" the garden, removing dust from the leaves and giving the foliage a thorough cleansing.