A Kapama Safari – Part Three

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Janet

It’s the afternoon of our second day at Kapama Private Game Reserve in Limpopo (Day 4 of our South Africa garden tour). The calendar says October 12^th and the temperature is very hot, in the mid-30s or 90F+ with humidity. It is the first and only time our bathing suits will emerge from our suitcases, as we take the opportunity to cool off in the swimming pool at River Lodge. Leaving our room for our third game drive (I also blogged about our first and second game drives at Kapama) I come upon a few nyalas browsing in the brush adjacent to our suite. Shy by nature, they have nevertheless learned to be calm in this safe environment. As we head into the bushveld in our vehicle, we slow to watch their lookalike cousins, the greater kudus. But the word on the radios is that a leopard has been sighted in the vicinity so Willis and another tracker head off into the bush on foot. Clearly, they know their job, but um……

Part of the fun of being on an animal safari is the occasional insight you gain into the plants that grow in the bushveld. The shrub below is the magic guarri bush (Euclea divinorum) and Dino points out that the leaves are so rich in bitter tannins that it is not browsed by wild animals. Those tannins also provide a dye for traditional basket-making (in Durban a few days from now, I’ll buy four beautiful Zulu baskets for my children). Parts of the tree are also used by the traditional sangomas in “divining” problems (thus the botanical name) with the body or mind; the bark is used to fabricate ropes; and a decoction of the fruit is used in making an alcoholic beverage. It has many other uses as described on the plantzafrica site, including treatment of coughs, diarrhea and stomach problems.

After a lot of driving and radio communication, we finally come upon the leopard (Panthera pardus) resting in the bush; alas, well camouflaged by shrubs and grasses. Some people are bothered by the collar around its neck, thinking this somehow makes it “tame” and not a valid part of a “wild animal safari”. In fact, Kapama is a conservation oasis for cheetahs and leopards that have been rescued, often in dire circumstances, either trapped in a farmer’s snare in the wild or in locations where they have been caged to amuse their owners. This leopard was likely rescued and collared as part of Fred Berrangé’s Leopard Conservation Project which has saved more than 150 leopards since its inception in 2000. But catching them and bringing them to animal reserves is not the project’s main goal; it is educating farmers in how to deal with leopards as predators of their domestic animals, rather than removing them from the ecosystem in which they play a vital and natural role.

It’s a quiet game drive after that, and we head to the clearing where Dino transforms himself from expert game ranger to cocktail waiter. Cheers!

And as we stand chatting and sipping our “sundowners”, the sun appropriately goes down and the sky over the Drakensberg range is suffused with colour.

Then it’s time for our second night drive. Willis’s flashlight sweeps the bush on both sides of the road.

And somehow he sees them: a pair of female lions sleeping on the far side of the waterhole. Dino turns the vehicle and we drive the 4×4 down the slope to the water’s edge. Gulp. But these cats are fast asleep and we are able to study them quietly for a few moments.

The lion sighting, after seeing the leopard, puts us in a great mood as we drive back to the lodge under the stars for dinner.

4^th and Final Game Drive Day 5 of our garden tour “dawns” early and we get a start on packing our bags, since we’re heading to the local airport right after lunch to fly to Durban. Soon we’re climbing into the vehicle for our final three-hour game drive. As often happens, our tracker sees tracks! Dino and Willis get out and study the footprints by the side of the road. Fresh lion tracks is their conclusion.

And a few minutes later, Dino gets out to follow a drag mark in the dirt: a hyena has dragged home dinner through the bush. Dino points out the white-backed vulture (Gyps africanus) waiting in a tree for the thermal winds that will aid in its airborne search for food.

And then we find her, a female lion down by the watering hole – likely one from last night now looking wide awake but not in the least concerned about us watching her.

We drive on, and Dino gets out and tells us a little about the silver-clusterleaf tree (Terminalia sericea), a common bushveld species. According to Plantzafrica, “The leaves and roots are boiled in water and the infusion is taken orally for the treatment of coughs, diarrhea and stomach aches. the leaves can be used as an antibiotic for wounds. In case of bleeding, a paste can be made by cooking the leaves in water and placing them on the wounds. The wood is used as a source of energy for cooking and boiling water, for construction huts, for fencing material and for solid structures. Leaves are food for caterpillars during the rainy season.”

Driving on a bit, we come upon a female white rhino (Ceratotherium simum) and her calfforaging in the grasses. Here is a little flavour of the atmosphere in the bush (and the sound of ranger’s radio communications) as the rhinos feed.

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And our last mid-morning coffee break at Kapama, with Dino and Willis sharing the pouring honours.

Caffeine and biscuit under my belt, I’m now wide awake and in focus…..

Our last lovely sighting of our South African safari features two male giraffes “necking” at a water hole. Giraffes move in loose herds, the females sticking together and the calves playing in groups. At around 3 years of age, the males leave their mothers and become part of “bachelor herds”, often standing side-by-side and using their necks like boxers’ arms and their heads like fists to show dominance. This pair is just sparring, says Dino, while assuring us that the real thing is much more vicious.

And then it’s time to leave Kapama. What a wonderful two days we’ve had here, but it’s time to get back to garden touring. We leave Limpopo province and re-enter Mpumalanga. Here are houses in the small town of Bushbackridge, so named in 1880 for the number of antelopes that roamed the slope.

We pass a typical fruit vendor’s stand selling bananas, oranges, onions and tomatoes.

And this fabulous jacaranda tree spangled with weaver nests.

And farm pickers working beneath the Drakensberg foothills.

Then it’s time for a short shopping stop at a smart little mall in White River where I find this lovely “made in South Africa” beadwork necklace. (Yes, I do like gaudy costume jewelry, now that you ask!)

Finally, we’re at the airport for our 1-hour flight to Durban. Stay tuned for more on this city, including the lovely Durban Botanic Garden.

A Kapama Safari – Part One

Posted on January 5, 2015 by Janet

Although our South Africa trip is essentially a garden tour, happily for us Donna Dawson has included a 2-night safari stay at Kapama River Lodge a 20-room eco-resort set in the 32,000-acre Kapama Private Game Reserve outside Kruger National Park. (There are three smaller lodgings on the property as well.) There are many private game reserves near Kruger

Since we arrive in the early afternoon of the day we tour the Blyde River Canyon Reserve area nearby, that gives us four game drives (this afternoon-tomorrow morning-tomorrow afternoon-following morning) before our flight to Durban from the local airport servicing Kruger.

Arriving at the lodge, we have a quick buffet lunch and head to our rooms for a rest before our first game drive, scheduled for 4-7 pm. The landscape here is natural savannah with a few added indigenous plants, like the beautiful Euphorbia ingens and the aloe.

It’s a lovely room — spacious and close to the spa, if that’s your fancy. I look through the bathroom window and browsing in the bushveld just outside is a female nyala What a treat to be so close to the antelopes! (No worries: lions and leopards are not allowed in this area.)

Our little balcony allows us to sit and get a closer look at the nyala, quietly browsing the vegetation. I have been on one other safari in Kenya and Tanzania (2007), and it is by far my favourite kind of vacation: to be in an entirely natural place in the midst of wild animals and plants, where we are the ones in a kind of zoo, and the animals are watching us. (It’s not too off the mark to say it’s like Disneyland for grownups.)

Shortly before 4 pm, we walk out into the parking area and (knowing our assigned vehicle is the one we’ll have for our stay) I ask the first guide I see a rather leading question. “Whose vehicle should we choose?” With a wry smile, he points to the one he’s standing beside: “This one.” We have now met our wonderful tracker, Willis, who sits on a jump-seat mounted on the front of the vehicle. Soon we also meet our ranger and driver, Dino, a 26-year old ball-of-energy who’s been at Kapama for just 9 months and is an enthusiastic font of wild animal knowledge and dry humour.

Before long, our open-topped vehicle is driving out into the bushveld. That’s the name for the savannah landscape in this part of South Africa, where scattered trees and shrubs stud dry grasslands. It’s not all flat, since it also includes part of the Drakensburg escarpment in the north. Though we are here in African spring (October), the summer rains (December is peak rainy season in the Kruger region) have not yet started so the landscape is mostly brown and parched looking.

Dino draws our attention to a marula tree (Sclerocarya birrea) whose bark has been browsed away by elephants. He tells us they often find the marula berries in elephant dung, which helps to spread the trees. Paradoxically, female marula trees (marulas are dioecious and fruit forms only on the females) are often destroyed by elephants, which puzzles evolutionary biologists.

Our first game drive animal sighting is a female impala browsing on a tree.

Then we see a female giraffe in the road ahead. Mature adult giraffes stand 5-6 metres tall (16-20 feet), making them the tallest animals in the world. I love these graceful animals.

Throughout Africa, there are nine subspecies of the giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis), each with its own spot pattern and other differences, such as the median lumps of the males. Linnaeus assigned the specific epithet because of the similarity of the animals to camels with leopard coats. The South African sub-species, native also to southern Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique) is G. camelopardalis giraffa, with an estimated wild population of 12,000 and 45 more in zoos. New DNA evidence suggests that at least six of these sub-species may actually be species, with genetic drift resulting in reproductive isolation (inability to interbreed).

This giraffe below is nibbling on a knobthorn acacia (Senegalia nigrescens), her rough tongue carefully negotiating the succulent foliage around the thorns.

Kapama features more than 350 bird species. Here is a red-billed hornbill (Tockus sp.) in the grass by the road.

And some helmeted guinea fowl (Numida meleagris) peck about for seeds.

A pregnant plains zebra (Equus quagga quagga) is browsing in the grasses.

Dino knew from the time he was a young boy on safari trips with his parents that he wanted to be a ranger, so he worked in the mining industry long enough to earn a nest egg that allowed him to switch to this less remunerative but (for him) more rewarding profession. Here he is explaining the symbiotic relationship of some of the acacia species, aka African thorn trees (Vachellia sp.) with stinging ants that nest in galls in the thorns and can repel the animals that attempt to browse them by emerging to sting them. He breaks off a thorned twig so I can inspect it, but after I stab my hand with it for a second time, I toss it out of our vehicle.

Then we see a small group of female greater kudus. To the untrained eye, the nyala can be easily mistaken for a kudu – not surprising, since both are South African antelopes. But the males are easily identified, since kudus have twisted horns and nyala horns have just one angular bend. Dino points out the large ears of the kudu, noting that their acute hearing is a sensory compensation for poor eyesight.

Dino points up into a tree and we see a Verreaux’s eagle owl (Bubo lacteus) fledgling peeking over the edge of its nest. This is the largest African owl.

Our next sighting is a very thrilling one, and begins with a “hands-on” lesson from Dino. He has spotted a pile of fresh rhinoceros dung and some small antelope droppings. So we know that the rhinos are in the area.

We drive on, past a tall termite mound.

Trackers are always alert to animal tracks, and Willis and Dino follow some fresh ones for a few minutes. The direction helps them decide which way to drive.

It’s not long before Willis signals quietly for Dino to stop the vehicle, pointing to the left. There in the brush is a mother and juvenile white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum).

Dino carefully manoeuvres our vehicle in order to improve our view. South Africa has a strong conservation initiative to protect rhinos from the horrendous poaching crisis that has decimated their population in Africa, but no jurisdiction is immune from the unspeakable and vicious hunting of these animals for their horns. In fact, a few days from now, we’ll visit the Natural History Museum in Durban where we see a big display on rhino poaching and what is being done to curb it.

We stop in the bushfeld for sundowner cocktails as the sun sets. And before long, we’re wending our way back in the dark, with Willis’s flashlight scanning back and forth across the road for cat’s eyes.. Nothing tonight, alas. Dinner (the tame kind at a delicious buffet) awaits back at the lodge, followed by an early bedtime, for tomorrow’s first game drive means a 5 am wakeup call.

The Beautiful Blyde Canyon Reserve

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Janet

It’s Day 3 on our South African Garden Tour and we’ve travelled from Johannesburg (via an overnight stay in the little town of White River) towards the Kapama Game Park near Kruger National Park. Yesterday, we saw a lot of this beautiful country from a bus window but today we’re actually getting out of the bus at a few spots to tour one of Mpumalanga’s most spectacular sites, the Blyde River Canyon Nature Reserve. Our first stop is at a lookout called God’s Window.

Though it must be spectacular on a clear day, there’s a good reason why this part of the Drakensburg Escarpment is called the Mist Belt, where moisture rises from the lowveld 1200 metres below. But the little I can see of this montane forest with its slopes carpeted with aloes and ferns is stunningly beautiful.

The mist has condensed on this yellowwood tree (Podocarpus latifolius). We saw yellowwoods in gardens in Johannesburg, but it is wonderful to see it here in nature.

After taking in the non-view, we get back on the bus and drive a little further down the road to the Bourke’s Luck Potholes. A Nguni cow grazes on the side of the highway at the entrance. Nguni cattle have a rather storied history in the country. Their ancestors were brought by the Xhosa, Zulu and Swazi people during their migration to southern Africa between 600 and 1400 AD. The famous Zulu king Shaka (1787-1828) seized control of the Nguni herds in the areas he controlled and later bred them according to colour and patterns, pure white being the colour of his royal herd. Nguni cattle are still used today as a bride’s dowry or lobolo.

The nature conserve headquarters features a quaint little display of animals native to the canyon.

Other indigenous animals include the mongoose, chacma baboon, leopard, civet cat, spotted genet and caracal.

But the main attraction is the spectacular juncture at which the Treur River descends through the rocky sandstone landscape to fall…..

…..into the Blyde River below. The Blyde River Canyon is 26 kilometres (16 miles) long and averages 750 metres (2460 feet) in depth.

Both rivers were named by followers of the Voortrekker (Afrikaner emigrants from the British Cape Colony) leader Hendrik Potgieter who in 1844 left his main trek and set off with a few men for Mozambique to make contact with the Portugese there. When he failed to return, the sorrowful men and women left behind headed west along a river they named Treur, the Dutch word for sadness or grief. But days later, Potgieter caught up with them on another river, which they named Blyde, the Dutch word for joy (and the same root as the word “blithe”).

The canyon scenery is stunning, the massive boulders tipped on their sides here and there along its course.

It was the action of sandstone gravel in the kolks (the Dutch word for the whirlpool-like vortices that occur when water rushes past an obstacle) in the plunge pools from the Treur River into the Blyde that scoured out the cylindrical potholes or kettles we can see from high above. They were named for a local prospector, Tom Bourke, who correctly predicted that gold would be found in the area (it was found at nearby at Pilgrim’s Rest, among other places), but did not find any himself.

Above the Blyde River, I note a number of interesting plants, like this pretty pink Mpumalanga sagebrush (Syncolostemon transvaalensis).

Lightning-caused fires are common in this area but plants like these grasses have adapted to fire and re-sprout quickly.

The plant below, shown at left after a fire and at right in nearby grassland, was a mystery for me until I presented it to my Plant Identification group on Facebook. It looked a little like an acacia or mimosa, but I was puzzled as to how such a small sapling would be sexually mature enough to put forth such a profusion of flowers. It made so little sense to me that I was convinced it was a herbaceous plant. But one extremely knowledgeable Belgian plantsman identified it as a shrub or small tree called Elephantorrhiza elephantina or elephant’s root (also known as eland’s bean or wattle).

And in a country with so many languages, it’s not surprising that this one has many: elandssboontjie or olifantswortel in Afrikaans and intolwane in Xhosa and Zulu, to name just a few. But the habit of elephant’s root is remarkable in two ways. First, it is “caudiciform”, meaning its above-ground growth emerges from a massive, tuber-like, underground root called a caudex (like the desert rose Adenium obesum, for example). Second, it is a “geoxylic suffrutex”, a sub-shrub that makes wood like regular trees and shrubs, but dies to the ground in adverse conditions only to re-emerge when conditions are favourable. It turns out that elephant root lives underground in large forests that can be very ancient, having evolved to protect them from frequent grazing and the wildfires that can raze South African savannahs. Thus the “young” trees in the photos above might actually be dozens or hundreds of years old. This fascinating aspect of botanical survival was described in a BBC Earth feature titled “Why Some Trees Live Underground”.

Another fun feature of the Bourke’s Luck Potholes is the Robert Filmer Lichen Trail.

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It’s a garden that explains and displays the various types of lichen that thrive in the misty conditions of the canyon……

….and it shows the unique life cycle of lichens and how they grow.

We walk along a trial with interpretive signs……

……. that also show the typical rocks of the area.

We have one more stop before the Kapama Game Park, and as we drive down the road we pass a number of typical houses in this rather remote countryside.

We arrive at the Three Rondavels where there is a walkway through typical indigenous forest to the lookout. Sadly, the mist makes the spectacular view of the formations impossible. Fortunately, there is the internet to show us what we missed.

But all is not lost – I take note of the interesting plants growing here, like the num-num tree or Natal plum (Carissa macrocarpa).

Also growing nearby are the so-called cabbage trees (Cussonia spicata) that have become popular ornamentals in South Africa and elsewhere where they are hardy.

And two of us have spotted a sugar bush (Protea repens) on the way to the viewpoint so on the way out we persuade our guide Deon Romijn to have the bus driver stop so we can photograph it. We’re cautioned about snakes as we walk through the savannah grasses accompanied by Deon.

And here it is…….

We are so excited to have our very first look at a South African protea growing in the wild.

But now we’re back on the bus and travelling out of Mpumalanaga into Limpopo province, I gaze out the window and marvel at the tenacity of the sycamore fig (Ficus sycomorus) clinging to life on the lichen-rock face. It reminds me of some of the trees at Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

And I marvel at the amazing rock formations in this beautiful part of the country, imagining the tectonic forces that must have prevailed here 120 million years ago under Africa’s Jurassic predecessor continent Gondwana, as massive eruptions of basalt lava succeeded in cleaving away the chunks of land we now know as Antarctica, Madagascar, India and Australia.

And I might even nod off a little as we roll down the highway towards our date with South Africa’s majestic animals at Kapama Game Park.

So do join me in my next blog in the new year, as I take you on safari with me.

On the Bus from Johannesburg

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Janet

It’s the afternoon of our second full day in Johannesburg, South Africa. Having visited a number of private gardens, including beautiful Beechwood Gardens this morning, we’re on the bus headed northeast to the Kapama Game Park near Kruger National Park for our two-day safari (a part of this 2-week garden tour we’re really looking forward to). While it’s true that a bus travelling 50 miles an hour is a photographic challenge, on the other hand you are often passing amazing scenes that you’ll never see again. So, if your camera has an adjustable ISO setting, set it to a fast speed of 1600 or 3200 and start clicking. There might be a lot of blurry shots and the quality is not good enough for publication, but it is fine for recalling the details of a once-in-a-lifetime journey like this.

Our principal route is the lower line on this map, but we’ll be resting for the evening in a sweet little hotel in the town of White River, before heading to Kapama the next day via stops at God’s Window and the Bourke’s Luck Potholes in the spectacular Blyde River Canyon.

Johannesburg is in the Gauteng province, one of nine in South Africa. Geographically, it sits on a plateau called highveld. Today, we’ll travel northeast out of Gauteng into Mpumulanga province and tonight we’ll sleep in the lowveld of White River. Not having equivalent language, these velds are confusing to most of us North Americans. But now, on the highveld not far from Johannesburg, we see beautiful rolling hills and native acacias through the bus window.

And we also see the odd splash of purple, the flowering canopy of the beautiful jacaranda trees (J. mimosifolia). Beloved by many South Africans, they are nonetheless exotics from South America which have displaced much of the indigenous wild flora and are now targeted for removal. In a country with so many other needs, it seems paradoxical that funds would be earmarked for this project, but South Africa is quite sophisticated in its embrace of native flora.

We slow to pay a highway toll at Middelburg. Its name came from the fact that it was the “middle” town in the journey between the gold mining town of Lydenburg and Pretoria, capital city of Transvaal.. Though this is generally farming country, it was here that the British had a concentration camp during the Second Boer War of 1899-1902, at the end of which the South African Republic and the Free Orange State were annexed to the British Empire.

South Africa is mineral-rich and its prosperity, beginning with the 1866 discovery of diamonds in the Kimberley Cape and the Johannesburg Gold Rush of 1886 is still largely built on the profits of mining companies. Still, it’s a bit of a surprise to see piled slag heaps of open-pit mines close to the highway, like this chrome mine. Chrome, of course, is a vital component (with iron) in the manufacture of stainless steel.

And just a few miles away is the pile from an open-pit coal mine. Seventy-seven percent of South Africa’s energy needs are met with coal-fired plants.

We are now in the Crocodile River Valley heading for the Drakensberg escarpment. Northeast of us, the river forms the southern boundary of Kruger National Park.

But this area seems mostly agricultural. Here is a sophisticated irrigation setup on a farm field.

Farming is also of the subsistence variety, as with this small house and yard. There are a number of ethnicities in Mpumalanga province, but this region is mostly home to the Nguni people and we see the Nguni cows wandering along the roadside from time to time.

South Africa’s black population is divided into 4 major ethnic groups: 1) Nguni (Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and Swazi), 2) Sotho, 3) Shangaan-Tsonga and 4) Venda. The largest population is Zulu and Xhosa. Of the white population, approximately 60% is of Afrikaans heritage with the remaining 40% British or European. Then there is a mixed race population, mostly of indigenous Khoisan peoples combined with African slaves and white settlers. There are 11 official languages: Zulu (22.75%), Xhosa (16%), Afrikaans (13.5%), English (9.6%), Sepedi (9.1%), Tswana (8%), Southern Sotoho (7.6%), Tsonga (4.5%), Swazi or SiSwati (2.5%), Venda (2.4%) and Ndebele (2.1%).

Our wonderful South African tour guide, Deon Romijn is Afrikaans. He is also a remarkable font of information about his country, its geology (his degree was in geology), its customs, its politics and its people. I worry that my many questions will tire him, but he assures me they do not.

Deon grew up on a farm in Pretoria and speaks all 11 languages, including the Xhosa’s famous click-language. Later in the trip I ask our him to give me a short sample of Xhosa. He complies….

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Of course there’s no one who makes the click sound quite like Mama Africa, the amazing Miriam Makeba (1932-2008). Hailing from Johannesburg where she was born to a Xhosa father and Zulu mother, she was my first exposure to this magical language. When I was but a young teen and she was but a young woman. I had heard her singing the Click Song in a concert in Vancouver on her inaugural North American tour with Harry Belafonte. Here she is in a 1974 concert in Zaire, Congo, speaking to the audience in French, but clicking in Xhosa…..

Back to the bus. We pass a field of sweet prickly pear cactus (Opuntia ficus-indica), their fruit (itolofiya in Xhosa and turksvy in Afrikaans) an important edible for many, including Xhosa women who use them to make a kind of beer. Spined prickly pears or doornblad were once the target of a massive government eradication program to protect farms; however since there is an established prickly pear company in the area, this field may well be the spineless (kaalblad) prickly pear hybrids developed in California by Luther Burbank.

As we pass through low-lying, foggy valleys we begin to see the first plantations of Australian red gum trees (Eucalyptus camaldulensis). These are part of 4-million square kilometres of man-made forests (termed afforestation), mostly of red and blue gums (E. grandis) and various pines (P. patula, P. elliottii, P. taeda). On the far side of the Drakensberg escarpment, we will see many more gum tree plantations.

We now pass by the little town of Waterval Boven, then into a tunnel under the Drakensberg.

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On the other side of the mountains the landscape is amazingly different, with bitter aloes (Aloe ferox) dotting the grassy slopes of the hills amidst acacias. Winter-blooming, they are now out of flower in the southern hemisphere spring.

We pass numerous fruit plantations of avocado, guava and mangoes, below.

A little settlement with vegetables fenced off from wild animals.

We stop for gas and I wander around a bit. This tall, yellow-flowered shrub catches my eye – it’s Tecoma stans or yellow bells, a pretty but invasive native of the Americas. Its a weed here in South Africa, as it is in many parts of the world, including India and China.

Back on the road, we pass the Giraffe Stadium near Nelspruit, more properly called the Mbombela Stadium. One of 10 stadiums build for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, it is charming in its architecture, but also represented the great disparity of fortune in this nation, despite the proud face shown to the world during the soccer championships.

As we near our hotel in White River, we pass a number of fruit vendors. This pair is selling avocadoes and other fruit farmed nearby.

We arrive at our lovely rest for the night: the Casterbridge Hollow Boutique Hotel.

After freshening up, it’s just a short walk to dinner, then to bed. It’s been a long day.

Rain begins in the night so the next morning the garden is wet, but I’m intrigued by an unusual shrub with camellia-like flowers. I later learn it’s the Africa dog rose, Xylotheca kraussiana.

After breakfast, we’re back on the bus and soon travelling again between the big gum forests of Mpumalanga. This one has been freshly logged….

…While the one below has been interplanted with young stock. Gum trees are harvested at 15 years so interplanting of saplings is done at approximately 7 years. Prior to 1972 when gold mining formed the main industry in the region, this area was indigenous forest, but once gold mining stopped, permits were granted to grow these forests. Some of those permits are now expiring and the area will return to indigenous forest.

Gum tree timber is used extensively as mine pit props, telephone poles and in pulp and paper production.

We pass a banana plantation with the bunches wrapped in blue plastic bags. Our guide said this was so they don’t ripen too fast, and also to protect them against marauding birds, monkeys and other animals. (Having Googled this, I see that these blue bags are ubiquitous on banana plantations around the world; in some places they also refer to the bags protecting the fruit from rain that causes blemishes.) All first class fruit is for the export market, sent to Asia and Europe. South Africans get second and third class fruit.

The woman below is picking some type of grass or herbs from the side of the highway. Deon says she is likely harvesting plants for muti or traditional medicine. Her garment seems to have some significance, but I was unable to learn what that might be by looking online. A mystery (and some things should remain that way!) – NB: Thanks to Namhla in comments below, I can confirm that the woman is wearing the traditional wrap of a sangoma, a healer.

Finally we arrive in the Blyde River Canyon area, but the heavy mist will likely make our next stop problematic. That’s my next blog! Stay tuned….

A Garden Jewel in Johannesburg

Posted on November 25, 2014 by Janet

Our last private Johannesburg garden visit is to the spectacular Beechwood Gardens, owned by Christopher & Susan Greig. It’s a lovely house in the Hyde Park neighbourhood, designed in Romantic-Flemish style by Steffen Ahrends and owned originally by one of Johannesburg’s 20^th-century industrialists, cereal manufacturer Rudy Frankel.

Though the property’s name originally celebrated a massive copper beech tree that had to be removed after a storm, it is also graced by a huge specimen of North American water oak (Quercus nigra).

We are met by Beechwood’s full-time horticulturist Steven Gouveia and escorted via a shady side path toward the back garden. The property was originally landscaped in the 1940s by the renowned South African landscape architect Joane Pim, so the tree canopy is mature and the garden has good “bones”.

More than one gardener in Johannesburg has proudly drawn our attention to a beautiful shrub decked with mauve-striped white blossoms and flowering in dappled-heavy shade. It is the native South African forest bell bush (Mackaya bella) or “bosklokkiesbos” in Afrikaans, with azalea like blooms and glossy evergreen foliage.

Strolling through Beechwood’s woodland garden, our attention is drawn to a neat pile of cut tree limbs lining the path. It’s not firewood, says Steven, but simply a purposeful pile left to decompose and create sanctuary for nesting bees or other insects.

The path delivers us to the back garden, where empty clay pots await the season’s annuals (and remind us that this is, indeed, springtime in South Africa). And what’s this? Luscious yellow clivias (Clivia miniata var. citrina)…..

…. flowering like a little meandering river in the lawn under a shrub.

There was a time in the late 1980s when these newly-bred yellow clivias were so rare, they commanded a king’s ransom per single plant. There are numerous yellow colour forms now.

Christopher and Susan Greig are in the garden and greet us warmly. Christopher is the great-grandson of Charles Greig, who arrived in Gold Rush-gripped Johannesburg from Aberdeen in 1899. Soon he was producing clocks for the mines that were springing up around the young city, and over the next century, Charles Greig would become Johannesburg’s pre-eminent jeweler, with five stores in the city.

Susan brings out freshly-baked cupcakes (she runs a cooking school from the property) serving them beside the beautifully-furnished outdoor sitting area adjoining the house.

Then Christopher takes us on a garden tour, explaining what he’s done with the 3.5 acre garden in the 14 years that they have owned Beechwood, which is open to the public on the last consecutive Friday and Saturday of each month except December.

We begin with the series of six interconnected naturalistic ponds and a bog.

Though it’s too early in the season for the lotuses, the waterlilies are in full bloom.

And the ponds attract Egyptian geese, here preparing to swim away beside a planting of red Louisiana iris (Iris Hexagonae Group).

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I am not familiar with these stunningly beautiful and colourful Hexagonae irises, a complex hybrid mix of five southern iris species: I. brevicaulis, I. fulva, I. hexagona, I. giganticaerulea and I. nelsonii.

And here’s a closer look at the Egyptian goose (Alopochen aegyptiaca). It is native to Africa and was considered sacred in Egypt, where much of the breeding occurred.

The family swimming pool is simple and overlooked by a Luytens bench.

We step down onto the terrace adjoining the rose garden, where a pretty flower border greets us. Ranunculus (R. asiaticus) really seem to thrive in this climate, as they do in California in spring. The mixed colours are united with silvery lambs’ ears (Stachys byzantina).

Such attractive flowers – and excellent in spring bouquets.

Though mostly out of bloom this early in the season, the formal rose garden is spectacular with its boxwood-edged beds. It sits 2 metres (6 feet) below the lawns. Christopher designed the long colonnade on the left, bringing the handsome support pillars from elsewhere in the garden.

The rose garden is arranged around a formal fountain. Water for the fountains and water features is not a problem at Beechwood Gardens, which sits over a natural underground aquifer.

The sunken vegetable garden, designed by Christopher (who also grows the vegetables from seed), provides many of the ingredients for Susan’s cooking school, which is housed in the building in the background.

Like a French potager, it also features a classical central fountain and slightly raised brick-edged beds filled with all kinds of leafy plants. Here, the rhubarb is just about ready to harvest.

Later in the season (October corresponds roughly to May for temperate plants in South Africa), when the root vegetables and tomatoes have matured and the nasturtiums and cornflowers are in bloom, it must be gorgeous. Here’s the view looking back to a faux ruin.

Christopher is proud of being fully organic and encouraging all kinds of beneficial insects. To that end, he promotes the use of Mycoroot, a product that fosters healthy root growth.

Alongside the vegetable garden is a walkway flanked by fragrant French lavender and citrus trees.

Honey bees adore lavender, an excellent source of nectar — and, of course, lavender honey.

This afternoon we will leave Johannesburg and head north toward Kruger Park. But we couldn’t have finished our garden tour in the city with a lovelier, more diverse garden than Beechwood, thanks to the gracious welcome of Susan and Christopher Greig.

Janet Davis Explores Colour

In the garden & the world

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