Up on Table Mountain

It helps considerably during a tour of any kind when flexibility on the part of the organizers permits last-minute changes to the schedule in order to seize an advantage. That’s what happens on Day 8 of our South African garden tour, when our guide Deon casts a look at the clear blue sky around Table Mountain as we drive out to Stellenberg this morning before enjoying our tour and delicious lunch at Cellars-Hohenort.   Because the mountain is so often cloud-shrouded and so windy the cable cars cannot operate, it’s decided that we should count our weather blessings and visit it this afternoon.   It’s an impressive sight, this jutting tafelberg (its name in Afrikaans) that forms a dramatic backdrop to the city of Cape Town – even seen through the window of our tour bus.  The red arrow shows the terminus station for the Aerial Cableway that we will use to climb to the 3,653-foot (1,086 metre) summit.

Table Mountain-from Cape Town

Having lived in Vancouver for 19 years, I am familiar with the feeling of having mountains as a geographic constant in one’s life. There, the north shore mountains were our directional compass; provided they weren’t clouded in, you always knew which way you were headed because the mountains were north. But the city of Cape Town has developed around Table Mountain like a thick convex crescent with a bulge on the inner edge.  That bulge (you’ll see it in my photos further down) is delineated on the south by the pinnacled Lion’s Head and then the long fold of Signal Hill to form the “Cape Bowl”. So depending on where you are in the city and its suburbs, Table Mountain and its floriferous slopes can be north, east, south or west of where you are. In a few days, we’ll be visiting Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens which is on the lower slope of the east side of Table Mountain.  In this closer view, you can just make out the cables of the Aerial Cableway (red arrow).

Table Mountain

I’ve marked up this NASA satellite image to show some of the landmarks of this part of the Western Cape Province. Though Table Mountain (red arrow) looks small from this vantage point, its flat plateau top is about 2 miles from side to side and, of course, its area at sea level is much bigger.  Together with Devil’s Peak, Lion’s Head and Signal Hill it forms the northernmost part of the sandstone range that is the rocky spine of the Cape Peninsula.   At the southeast tip is Cape Point, which is not the Cape of Good Hope, the latter being the most southwest point of Africa and the Cape Peninsula.  Table Mountain is also the most popular part of Table Mountain National Park, which covers 85 square miles. Because the mountain range is not contiguous and there are cities and towns sprinkled in between, the park is divided into three parts: 1) the Table Mountain Section; 2) the Silvermine-Tokai Section; and 3) the Cape Point Section stretching from Cape Point to the Cape of Good Hope.  In the next few days, we’ll visit the vineyards of Stellenbosch and we’ll circle False Bay to get to the delightful Harold Porter Botanical Garden in Betty’s Bay on our way to spot the whales frolicking at Hermanus. And Robben Island (lower left), of course, is where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 of the 27 years he spent in jail before the fall of South Africa’s apartheid governent.

Table Mountain LANDSAT

The Table Mountain Aerial Cableway was built in 1929 and each of its cars can carry 65 passengers.  Prior to being built, visitors to Table Mountain had to climb it on foot.  The cableway prides itself on being accident free for more than 85 years.  I make sure to find a place at the window; since the cars rotate slowly 360 degrees as they climb, it’s a perfect way to see both the view of Cape Town below (that’s Signal Hill on the left and Robben Island in the bay beyond it), and the mountain flora below.

Table Mountain Cableway

With my telephoto lens, I can see Table Bay and downtown Cape Town clearly. The bay was dangerous to navigate before breakwaters were built and ships wrecked in its shallows for hundreds of years.  Today, the port is the second biggest after Durban in South Africa.

Table Bay & Cape Town City Centre

More views of Table Bay and the city as we ascend.

Cape Town & Table Bay

And here are the pinnacled Lion’s Head and the long spine of Signal Hill that help to shape that Cape Bowl. That circular building at the end of Signal Hill is the Cape Town Stadium at Green Point, built for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Our hotel is less than a mile from the stadium and close to the Victoria and Albert Shopping centre, too. Later this week, we’ll watch hundreds of fans parade down the street after Cape Town Ajax loses to Johannesburg’s Kaiser Chiefs.

Lion's Head & Signal Hill-Cape Town

Gazing down at the slopes, the vegetation is tantalizing. How wonderful it would be to be hiking up through the fynbos and exploring the unique flora, like this rare and endangered tree pincushion  (Leucospermum conocarpodendron ssp. conocarpodendron), which grows only in the fertile soil on the Precambrian-era Cape Granite at the base of Table Mountain.   Above the granite, there’s a narrow layer of reddish Malmesbury shale.

Leucospermum conocarpodendron-Table Mountain

As we approach the top, the geology of the uppermost layers changes from granite topped with shale to the characteristic steep grey crags of the very hard, quartzitic, erosion-resistant, Ordivician sandstone known as Peninsula Formation Sandstone (or Table Mountain Sandstone)

Table Mountain sandstone

Below is Devil’s Peak, adjacent to Table Mountain, so named because when the inevitable clouds swirl around its peak it is said to resemble the devil smoking a pipe.  In a day or so, we’ll visit the Rhodes Memorial on its lower flank.  And the name? According to Wikipedia: “The English term Devil’s Peak is a 19th-century translation from the Dutch Duiwels Kop, and supposedly comes from the folk-tale about a Dutch man called Jan van Hunks, a prodigious pipe smoker who lived at the foot of the mountain circa 1700. He was forced by his wife to leave the house whenever he smoked his pipe. One day, while smoking on the slopes of the peak, he met a mysterious stranger who also smoked. They each bragged of how much they smoked and so they fell into a pipe-smoking contest. The stranger turned out to be the Devil and Van Hunks eventually won the contest, but not before the smoke that they had made had covered the mountain, forming the table cloth cloud.”

Devil's Peak from Table Mountain

We are now so high that I can see behind Lion’s Head and Signal Hill to the affluent suburb of Camps Bay, with its rocky shoals and white sand beaches.

Camp's Bay-Beach

And here we look south down the green spine of the mountains of the Cape Peninsula.

View of Cape Peninsula from Table Mountain

Some people prefer to hike up the mountain, like this enterprising trio.  But I suspect as scary as this looks from my angle in the cablecar, the upper portion is likely more of a sandstone stairmaster from hell!
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Hikers on Table Mountain

Finally, we approach the upper terminus and exit the cablecar.

Cableway Terminus Station

We’re free to wander about the plateau on our own for an hour or so.  Look at all those native restios that have been such a big part of ornamental gardens in milder parts of North America.  Lots of tourists are up here enjoying the easy stroll over the “tabletop”, which owes its flatness……

Table Mountain-Summit

….. to the fact that it was once the bottom of a valley.  (Photo from Wikipedia and used under Creative Commons Licence.)

Erosion

I rush about snapping photos of plants that catch my eye, but the sunshine is brilliant and the shadows are deep, poor conditions for photography.  I try to concentrate on the fact that many tourists miss the chance to be right where I am now.  Table Mountain is renowned for its biodiversity and its unique “Cape Fynbos” vegetation.  Fynbos is defined as a sclerophyllous (having hard leaves) shrubland occurring on acid sands or nutrient poor soils derived from Table Mountain Sandstones.  It includes many members of the Protea family (Proteaceae), the Heath family (Ericaceae) and the Reed family of restios (Restionaceae).  The mountain’s vegetation types form part of the Cape Floral Region protected areas. These protected areas are a World Heritage Site, and an estimated 2,200 species of plants are confined to Table Mountain – more than exist in the whole of the United Kingdom.Though it is the smallest of the six recognized floristic regions on the planet, it is the most diverse, with more than 9,000 vascular plant species.

I see the tree aloe (Aloe arborescens), now past its winter flowering.

Aloe ferox-Table Mountain

Here are the distinctive leaves of the red heath (Erica abietina ssp. abietina) – a photo I was going to toss out, but I do like the feathery leaves.

Erica abietina ssp. abietina

This is thatching reed (Thamnochortus insignis), one of the restios used for thatched roofs.

Thamnochortus insignis-Table Mountain

And the Peninsula conebush (Leucadendron strobilinum), so called because its flowers look like pine cones.

Leucadendron strobalinum-Table Mountain

Golden coulter bush (Hymenolepis parviflora) is growing everywhere.

Golden Coulter Bush- Hymenolepis parviflora

And of course there is lots of the strawflower-like white everlasting (Edmondia sesamensis) seen throughout the Western Cape.

Edmondia sesamoides-Table Mountain

Perhaps the best way to see the myriad and marvelous flora of Table Mountain is to find someone who knows it well, loves plants and writes beautifully about them. That description would fit writer/photographer/forager Marie Viljoen, former Capetonian (ex-Brooklynite and now Harlem, New York resident) who goes “home” frequently and hikes the mountain with camera in hand.  For those who want to see a little more of the Cape Fynbos flora, this is what you might find on a winter hike, i.e. June in North America.  Treasures abound in the January summertime, too.   And this remarkable flowering of fire liies from the ashes is what happens after wildfires like those of winter 2015.  (And if you want a lovely New York photography-cookbook, consider buying Marie’s wonderful book 66 Square Feet: A Delicious Life, One Woman, One Terrace, 92 Recipes.)

Our time on the mountain is drawing to an end but as I walk back to the cableway station I spot a rock hyrax (“dassie” in Afrikaans) lying, appropriately enough, on a rock.  Though you might be tempted to think this animal is related to the groundhog or guinea pig or some other furry creature, DNA testing has revealed the startling fact that his closest relative is the elephant.  This dassie is a sentry for his nearby den and will spend long periods of time lying on this rock watching for predators (eagles are common), but also basking in the sun in order to manage thermoregulation, which is known to be poor in this species. By the evidence it would appear he’s been hanging out here for quite some time but, in fact, dassies create latrines in hollowed-out rocks or crevices and use those places faithfully.  However, it’s not until I return home and start researching that I am filled with delight at having captured not just the animal, but his excrement. For the dassie’s accumulated, dried deposits (combinations of feces and urine) are called hyraceum, an aromatic substance that is the prized ingredient in many perfumes.

Rock hyrax-Procavia capensis

And on that fragrant note, I bid you adieu until the next time (which will be a city tour of Cape Town.)

The Gardens of Cellars-Hohenort

After a delightful morning visit to Stellenberg in Cape Town, we arrive at one of the finest hotels in the city, indeed in all of South Africa. Not just luxe lodging, of course, for that wouldn’t be enough to bring us here on our garden tour, but a spectacular garden as well.   I’ve visited a lot of hotels that have skillfully designed landscapes, but I can count on one hand the number that feature a garden that seems like a generous gesture by the owners that is well beyond the normal definition of “lovely grounds”.  That defines the garden at The Cellars-Hohenort Hotel in Constantia Valley on the slopes of Table Mountain, and the generosity of spirit and creativity of the hotel’s late owner Liz McGrath.

Cellars-Hohenort

We begin with a short talk at the top of the property by Hohenort’s garden manager, Neil McKrill, who will give us the grand tour today.

Neil-McKrill-Cellars-Hoheno

I can’t help but gaze longingly at a nearby rose tripod bearing the most luscious peach rose, and I laugh when I hear the name, ‘Crépuscule’, which has a faintly medicinal sound. But I understand completely after looking up the translation, for it means the colour of the sky at twilight or dusk.  It’s a Noisette Tea climber, bred in 1904 by Francis Dubreuil – and best in warm climates.

Rosa 'Crépuscule'

Roses are used extensively here at Hohenort, including masses of white ‘Iceberg’ (which must be by far the most popular rose in South Africa), its blossoms echoing nicely the whitewashed Cape architecture.

Rosa-'Iceberg'

And as at Stellenberg, white gardens form a theme here, too, like these white borders flanking a reflecting pool. That cascading cerise bougainvillea adds a nice contrast.

White-Garden

Calla lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica), native to South Africa, is no less sumptuous for being common and is set off nicely by the frothy white campion (Lychnis coronaria ‘Alba’) and white columbines.

Zantedeschia & Lychnis

Nearby is a bed of bright pincushions (Leucospermum cordifolium) – still a novelty for us since we haven’t yet seen any serious collections of native plants (but that will come later!)

Leucospermum cordifolium

The formal rose garden is gorgeous, and seems to be at peak bloom.

Rose Garden-Cellars Hohenort

We will see these clearwing butterflies (Acraea sp.) all over Cape Town gardens.

Acraea butterfly on rose

Neil explains that the vineyard has these red and white roses planted at the end of the rows of red and white wine grapes respectively. The idea is that a fungus like mildew will affect the rose leaves first, giving the vintner an early warning to treat the grape leaves for the same problems.

Roses & Grapevines-Cellar Hohenort

A lovely combination of Mexican fleabane (Erigeron karvinskianus) and Asian chain fern (Woodwardia orientalis) graces the base of a stone wall.

Woodwardia orientalis & Erigeron karvinskianus
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And how pretty is this arch bedecked with lavender trumpet vine (Bignonia callistegioides).

Clytostoma callistegioides-Lavender Trumpet Vine-Cellars Hohenort

 

We head down into Hohenort’s shady woodland, past the water garden with moisture-loving calla lilies and yellow flag iris (Iris pseudacorus).

Woodland-Cellars Hohenort

As we walk the path, Neil points up to the amazing canopy of camphor trees (Cinnamomum camphora).  They are between 220 and 240 years old – the second oldest camphors in South Africa. I think what a lovely, cool retreat this would be for hotel guests on hot summer days.

Camphor tree-Cinnamomum camphora

Passing through a little orchard, Neil asks whether we know this trick: crush a citrus leaf with your fingers, then smell it. You should be able to tell by the essesntial oils released whether it’s an orange or lemon. (This was definitely zesty lemon.)

Lemon leaf crushing

Heading back to the hotel, we pass this unique water feature.

Arched water feature-Cellars Hohenort

Our garden tour with Neil ends at the main building beside this lovely little formal parterre.

Parterre-Cellars Hohenort

Our tour leader Donna Dawson has arranged an elegant lunch at Cellars-Hohenort.  What a serene and inviting lobby sitting room.

Cellars-Hohenort-Interior

Our lunch, appropriately, will be in The Greenhouse Restaurant with its cool, ferny decor.

The Greenhouse-Cellars-Hohenort

Neil McKrill’s wife does the floral arrangements for the hotel. I like the modern feel of these ones.

The-Greenhouse-Restaurant-C

And what could be more appealing after a long morning touring gardens than a glass of South African white wine and a bowl of chilled mint-pea soup to start?  Time to relax and enjoy the setting, for we’re not quite finished our day of touring yet……

Pea-and-mint soup-The Greenhouse-Cellars Hohenort

Stellenberg: A Cape Dutch Classic

It doesn’t take long to understand why Stellenberg Gardens, the first stop on Day 8 of our South Africa garden tour, has been showcased internationally on the BBC and is the subject of its very own book.  Situated in a leafy section of Cape Town’s Kenilworth neighbourhood, the house is owned by Andrew and Sandy Ovenstone and has been in Andrew’s family since 1953.   We are greeted by the family’s three tail-wagging dogs.

Dogs-Stellenberg

There are beautiful, mature trees surrounding the house, including a native North American pin oak (Quercus palustris).  Oak trees have been a hallmark of Stellenberg since its beginnings.

Pin Oak-Stellenberg

Head gardener Athol McLaggan begins his history of the 6-acre estate as we make our way to the front of the house.

Athol McLaggan-Stellenberg

To reach the front, we wander through the lovely White Garden one of many discrete garden rooms on the property. Even at this time of year (October or mid-spring in Cape Town), there are beautiful examples of plants – often fragrant ones – that shimmer in the darkness.

Stellenberg-White Border

For example, variegated confederate jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides ‘Variegatum’) thrives in Cape Town’s subtropical climate and is exquisitely-scented.

Trachelospermum jasminoides 'Variegatum'

Four plants from Stellenberg’s White Garden are, clockwise from top left: chincherinchee (Ornithogalum thyrsoides); ‘White Barlow’ columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris); St. Joseph lily or Easter lily (Lilium longiflorum); and the rugosa rose Blanc Double de Coubert’.

White Flowers-Stellenberg

A shaded alfresco dining pergola is adjacent to the White Garden and, if you look closely, you can see white wisteria overhead. How romantic this table would be under the stars!   Through the opening at the end…..

Table & Pergola-Stellenberg

….you can see an original Stellenberg urn presiding over irises in the Parterre Garden.  Behind is a high hedge of scented Japanese honeysuckle.

Urn-Stellenberg

The front of the house faces the garden and displays the perfect symmetry of the Cape Dutch architectural style.  In fact, some sources consider Stellenberg – which was declared a National Monument in 1971 – to be the finest extant example of that architectural style, since it has not been altered significantly since it was built in the 1740s, soon after the property was deeded via land grant from the Dutch East India Company. As we gaze up at the historic gable, sculpted in the Cape Baroque style in the 1790s by Anton Anreith, master sculptor to the Company, I marvel at all the Cape Town history this house has seen. Through a long and colourful succession of owners, it finally became the property of Jenk and Renee Ovenstone in 1953 and later passed  to Andrew and Sandy.

Stellenberg-Cape Dutch House

After Sandy arrived at Stellenberg in 1973, she was content for a while with the inherited landscape of well-established lawns, trees and shrubs.  But over the next 14 years, she nurtured her growing passion by learning all she could about gardening; touring famous Engllish gardens like Sissinghurst and Hidcote; and local gardens such as Babylonstoren in Drakenstein Valley, while being mentored by other Cape gardeners, including the owner of the beautiful Rustenberg Wine Estate in Stellenbosch. (I will be blogging about Babylonstoren and Rustenberg later).  Finally in 1987, with the help of interior designers Graham Viney and Gary Searle, she created her first garden, the formal Herb Garden in the shape of a cool green St. Andrew’s Cross.

Herb Garden-Stellenberg

Nearby is the Medieval Garden with its fountain hewn from Paarl granite and its combination of vegetables, fruit. and…..

Fountain-Stellenberg

…… altar flowers and medicinal herbs, like sweet cicely (Myrrhis odorata) seen here with pansies, columbines and scabiosas.  This garden was designed with Franchesca Watson Braisler.

Medieval Garden-Flowers-Stellenberg

Adjacent to the house is the swimming pool with its borders of cool blue- and purple-flowered plants enhancing the pool’s turquoise colour.

Stellenberg-Swimming pool
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Luscious agapanthus and scented heliotrope are in bloom in the borders now, and…..

Heliotrope & Agapanthus

….. blue Willmott leadwort (Ceratostigma willmottiana) puts on its own show as well.

Ceratostigma willmottianum

The famous Walled Garden – once a tennis court – was designed with the help of the late British interior and garden designer David Hicks.  Though originally planted in roses….

Stellenberg-Rose Arches

the Walled Garden has been reworked to include beautiful combinations of perennials, with the parterres divided by clipped myrtle hedges.  I think how lovely it would be to see the parterres a few months from now, in full bloom.

Stellenberg-Walled Garden

A honey bee nectars on Verbascum chaixii ‘Wedding Candles‘ in the Walled Garden.

Bee on Verbascum chaixii 'Wedding Candles'

Andrew and Sandy’s initials (and David Hicks’s too) overlook a Luytens bench commemorating their silver wedding anniversary in 1989.

Anniversary Bench-Stellenberg

The view to the house through the Walled Garden shows the billowing canopy of a syringa tree (Melia azardach)…

Stellenberg-Walled-Garden & house

…..with its masses of light-mauve blossoms.

Syringa tree-Melia azedarach

The Garden of Reflection features three simple black pools to reflect the sky and is planted with an understated palette to encourage a feeling of quiet contemplation.

Garden of Reflection-Stellenberg

The new Stream Garden is a testament to the natural water source that was a factor for the founding of the original 18th century farm at Stellenberg, as it would have been vital for crops.  Though we see Stellenberg’s gardens at the end of a wet winter, summer are very dry and the stream can be re-circulated if necessary.

Stream Garden-Stellenberg

A narrow whitewashed bridge traverses the stream, contrasting crisply with the cool green of the shade-loving foliage plants here.

Stream Garden-Bridge-Stellenberg

We depart Stellenberg via the Wild Garden with its indigenous African plants. Here, a beautiful native plectranthus (P. zuluensis) catches my eye, as it seems to symbolize Sandy Ovenstone’s desire to experience gardening in all its guises, including that inspired by the magnificent native flora of South Africa itself.

Plectranthus zuluensis

And then it’s onto the bus, for we have a special garden visit and lunch ahead at the renowned Cellars Hoehenhort in the Constantia Valley.

Under African Skies

It’s Day 7 of our South Africa Garden Tour, and we check out of our Durban hotel and drive to the airport.  On the way, we pass myriad rolling hills planted with sugar cane, long an important crop in the Durban area, but one that relies on cheap labour to make South African sugar production highly competitive, relative to other sugar-producing countries.

Sugar cane field near Durban

As we arrive at the new King Shaka International airport, we’re greeted with parking lots planted with indigenous South African succulents, trees and shrubs.  The plants were grown on here in polytunnels while the old airport was still in use; at the same time, alien exotic weeds were removed.  That process led by Michael Hickman (aka Ecoman Durban) was an interesting one, and has a tie-in with his plan to rehabilitate the land currently grown to sugar cane near the airport.

King Shaka International Airport - Durban

We are soon flying out of Durban and settling into our seats for the 2-hour-10-minute flight to Cape Town.  Our flight path will take us out of KwaZulu-Natal province over the Eastern Cape and finally into the Western Cape.  Having arrived a week ago in Johannesburg (Gauteng province), Cape Town will be our home for the next week and the duration of the tour.

Durban to Cape Town

Whenever I look out of an airplane window at the fluffy clouds below, I think of Joni Mitchell’s famous song Both Sides Now.   “I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now/From up and down and still somehow/It’s cloud illusions I recall/I really don’t know clouds at all”.

African Skies

But flying across South Africa, another favourite song filled my mind, this one about African Skies. Here are Paul Simon & South Africa’s Miriam Makeba singing it at in 1987 during the Graceland Concert – perhaps my favourite duet ever.

As I gaze out my window I see something I’ve never seen from the air before:  a rainbow, or maybe better described as a sundog.  Seen from above, it seems to defy the standard physics explanation of sun and water droplets and the angle of the viewer’s eye. I have to focus quickly to get it before it fades.

Rainbow from plane

As we approach Cape Town, I see an open-pit mine below, its massive maw ringed with a road and its tailing pond turquoise-blue in the centre.

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Another open-pit mine.

Open pit mine 2 - near Cape Town

Soon we are landing in Cape Town, population 3.74 million (2011).

Cape Town from the air

After unpacking at our hotel, we head out on a late afternoon walk to the nearby Victoria & Albert (V&A) shopping mall.  As usual, we miss the street we’re supposed to take and find ourselves at the seashore near Greenpoint Park.  Over the tops of a succulent, yellow-flowered gazania, I can see the mall in the distance.

Gazania - Cape Town

Just as well, we missed it – I don’t feel like shopping, anyway. We will go later in the week and have dinner there twice, but right now I’d rather be near the flora and the seashore. These South AFrican ice plants (Carpobrotus edulis), hated though they are in other parts of the world (California especially) where they have replaced the native seashore plants, would have been stunning a few hours earlier, but close their flowers in late afternoon.

Victoria & Albert Mall - Cape Town

And I love seeing the lavender-blue flowers of Plectranthus neochilus popping up among the succulents.

Plectranthus neochilus & Carpobrotus edulis-Cape Town

Walking home, we pass under a huge syringa tree (Melia azadarach).  I’m thrilled to see this and focus my lens up into the mass of mauve flowers.  Also called the chinaberry tree, it’s native to Southeast Asia and parts of the Middle East, but its invasive tendency is not what gives me pleasure, but rather its connection to one of the finest plays I’ve ever seen, the semi-biographical play The Syringa Tree, by writer Pamela Gien.  Looking up, I recall the glimpses she gave of her childhood during apartheid in South Africa and imagine playing under the sweeping boughs of the tree. As we walk back to the hotel and an early dinner, I’m happy and excited for the next week.

Syringa tree - Melia azadarach