Feathers

On a recent yet oh-so-far spring day in Cape Town I stood on the higher slopes of Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden, and listened to birds. A cacophany of sunbirds and sugarbirds. And in the taller trees, a boubou shrike and its mate, calling constantly.

The pincushions were in full bloom and most of the birds were invisible, in the depths of the woody shrubs. But I was lucky to see the inky, negative-black form of an amethyst sunbird male. Just the throat is the color of the gem.

The speckled female, above.

The sugarbirds are showy only at the base of their their long tails - a flash of yellow. 

And despite their myriad presence (judging by the twittering clatter from the bushes), I only caught one southern double-collared sunbird feeding.

Quiet, hen-like francolin (Cape spurfowl) browsed in the lawns and took dustbaths in the planted beds.

And the big surprise was a spotted eagle owl, nesting on the ground beneath a tree and behind some crassulas. I could see a small, white-fluffed chick beneath her feathers. (And took this photo with a telephoto lens, from behind a protective barrier.) As much as I love caracals, I hope the red cats that live on the mountain leave the owls alone.

False Bay

The 6.48pm light in Kalk Bay. This deck enjoys warming sunlight in the morning, but when the sun dips under the mountains behind us, the shadow begins up here, on the slope, while surfers and seals still bask in the waves and on the breakwater below.

It is a good place to sit, and the poppies have been enjoying the view.

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Sour grapes

Foraged in a Cape Town summer. Sour grapes. Not such a bad thing, after all.  How did I learn this? Shopping. In Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, at Balady's, a supermarket catering to Middle Eastern palates. In the produce sectiion was a crate of bright green, hard, sour grapes. And I recognized in myself the universal reaction: If they are selling them, they must have value. Of course I bought them (this was about five years ago...).

I think about this often in terms of wild or undervalued plants. Like Japanese knotweed, or garlic mustard, or field garlic. Or common mallow. Put a price tag on them and suddenly they have value, become visible, acquiring form and substance, coalescing from the great anonymous, undifferentiated green that most people (don't) notice even when they they are surrounded by plants. 

I'm still working on these grapes and stories will follow. Sour is interesting. It can do all sorts of things to dinner.

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Jaftha's Flower Farm

Recently I wrote about Jaftha's Flower Farm, for Gardenista. There is a lot more to it than pretty flowers. I visited the farm in Cape Town in December and January, when its fields were bright with dahlias, cornflowers, the first sunflowers, and sweet William. Here are some pictures that I didn't use for the article.

I gleaned this dinner-plate sized dahlia from between the rows, where a gardener was deadheading. And yes, dahlias are in fact edible!

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Jaftha's Flower Farm in Cape Town: A Painful Past, A Bright Future

In the shadows

From the photo files, as I swim my way back to the present, through images.

There are as many shadows in my feelings about family as there are in this picture of the kitchen where I find meaning and occupation (is occupation, meaning?) when I return home. 

But objects become lodestars. Sweet peas, old South African cookbooks, green figs, ripe figs, nasturtium seeds.

The light also makes me think of Karel Schoeman's Another Country. I must read it again.

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Up, and down again

A recent hike up Table Mountain with three friends was like a tonic. We met at 8am, and then began to walk. 

There are dozens of ways to climb up, and we chose Skeleton Gorge, on the cool western flank of the mountain, where you endure (endless) log and rock steps before climbing up (much more amusing) ladders and then scramble up boulders in the steep bed of a stream.

I love this route because it flattens for a spell, along the Smuts Track, above, and then allows you to choose to swing west along the Aqueduct, where disas, an endemic orchid, flower in summer. Watsonias dot the fynbos. Grassbirds and sugarbirds and sunbirds sing.

That's the Smuts Track in retrospect.

Photo: Marian Oliver

And the waterfall that never stops pouring pure, tea-colored mountain water. A good place to stop for a drink. 

Beautiful little drip disas (Disa longicornu) grow in the wet moss on the rock walls.

And after a downhill track you are in the kloof of the Disa River. We dipped, skinnily. It was freezing and wonderful.

And eventually it was down again, to the waiting world. This group of Belgian trail runners trotted past us at the top of Nursery Ravine. 

Clouds rose as we descended and the lower slopes were cloaked in a misty rain as we ended our walk in the early afternoon.

Next stop, Brooklyn.

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Dahlias in the house

Dahlias, in staggering perfection, from Jaftha's Flower Farm in Constantia.

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Summer, all of a sudden

From a cold picnic with hot soup beside a Northeastern mountain stream (my last post, dated November 15th), to a summer kitchen in Cape Town.  A bunch of sweetpeas from the garden, where my mom asked her gardener to remove the almost-spent plants to make way for the burgundy sunflowers I sowed for her several weeks ago, and that are now ready to be planted out.

I touched down at Cape Town International on December 2nd, on United's first direct flight from Newark, New Jersey.

In the last few days the first figs of a South African summer have arrived in supermarkets, and I am making good use of them. The best way to eat a fig is raw and ripe, or perhaps sliced into an early-evening apéritif.

And now I have some green (unripe) figs to preserve, to take back with me when I head home to Brooklyn.

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(I am usually here at Instagram)

Hiking in Cape Town: Silvermine

Gladiolus, somewhere between G. undulatus and G. monticola. 

[This post was first published on March 29th, 2009. After Googling a hike-time for Silvermine I landed up on my own blog. This post. Funny. Everything seen and documented ten years ago is true now, so I re-posted it.]

"The entire Cape Floristic Region averages 94 species per 1000 square km, making it much more diverse than any other part of the world. California and Southwestern Australia, two other Mediterranean regions, have respective average diversities of 14 and just under 12 species per 1,000 square km...Within the Cape Floristic Region, fynbos alone may contain between 150 and 170 species per 1,000 square km, an astonishing two or three times that measured for tropical rainforests..."

John Manning, Field Guide to Fynbos, 2007

Vince and I, two corgis and one black lab, set off from the eastern section of Silvermine, easily defined as lying on the eastern side of Ou Kaapse Weg, one afternoon after lunch at home. There are several possible routes one can follow from the car park, but we wanted a shortish walk of about three hours, and headed off towards the Amphitheatre*. I was relying on memory and an old map from Jose Berman's out-of-roint hiking book (circa 1976), but we should have had the up-to-date Slingsby's Silvermine Map.

* Confusingly, there are two Amphitheatres at Silvermine: One above Boyes Drive on the Kalk Bay (eastern) side, and the Amphitheatre Path around the reservoir (western side).

Slingsby's are excellent maps and I would encourage visitors to the Cape to purchase several (Table Mountain, Hout Bay, Cape Point) , and then use them. Very few tourists consider hiking proper (i.e. with backpacks, proper shoes and a MAP) when they come to the Cape Peninsula, and this omission deprives them of an unforgettably rich lifetime experience.

Table Mountain might look flat (or in our accent, flet) from the front, but it contains mountains within the mountain. The Table Mountain National Park itself extends right to the tip of the Cape Peninsula, with hundreds of hiking trails crisscrossing it, with plants and views unique to each.


Ah, Romulea, But you are not in Mr Manning's book. Growing almost flat on the sandy soil leading steeply up to the Amphitheatre, and as dense as gentians. Known as African bluebells.

For better ID'ing I have ordered Wild Flowers of Table Mountain, from England. Amazon had never heard of it. However Amazon did have Cape Peninsula: No. 3: South African Wild Flower Guide" by M.M. Kidd. A whopping $55. But I still have credit on my Christmas gift card. Thanks, Boss. Sold. So hopefully I will be saying "I think..." a little less often when it comes to plant names.

Pelargonium cucullatum, and the first and easiest I ever learned to recognize, as a twelve-year-old newly moved to the Cape from the grasslands of the Free State.

On a hill overlooking Ou Kaapse Weg, this Protea speciosa grew right next to the path.

I have seen these pelargoniums two years in a row now, in relative abundance beside these paths, growing out of dry sand banks, with leaves frizzled to nothing. I think they are P. pinnatum. What I love about these walks is that you see one flower for a few metres, and then another, and then more of the second, and so on, so that always there are localized pockets of something new. And this was a midsummer hike, not exactly the most floriferous time of year.

"At every step a different plant appeared; and it is not an exaggerated description, if it should be compared to a botanic garden...so great was the variety everywhere to be met with."

William Burchell, journal entry for the last week of November 1810.

Flax - Heliophila, no idea which species. And blooming late...it seemed to be a late year in general.

Thereianthus, and again not sure which one - the last time I walked here I saw them showing only their tantalizing drying stalks. With petals they are lovely!

This stunning, shrubby erica, dripping with waxy white and green blooms, grew on the path down into the Amphitheatre, just after False Bay had come into view. Sunbirds darted about, drinking their nectar. No luck ID'ing, as it does not seem to match the white ericas in my book.

Poor, short-legged corgis. I had told them the walk would be gentle. I had completely forgotten a steep, boulder-climbing section. Not having a collapsable water dish, we poured their water into one of the honeycombed sandstone boulders on the way. Here is Ted, slurping it up.

They said a lot in Welsh, and from the tone none of it apparently noy especially flattering to my person.

Lobelia, of course. L. coronopifolia.

Lachnaea grandiflora - mountain carnation, or bergangelier. They can also be pink. 

Polygala - butterfly bush.

Protea nitida, I think. For some reason I never paid much attention in the past to the proteas, most famous of the fynbos flowers. This one grew low down on a shrub about 8 feet high.

Back on the home stretch, Ben flopped into the pool above the waterfall.

And in the thicker, grassy vegetation behind the pool I found several more of these gladioli. The colouring looks like G. monticola but the form and habitat resembles more G. undulatus. Help.

Coming full circle. And home (10-minute drive) before dark. Obviating the necessity for a posse led by my father, which is what I found in the driveway the last time I returned, with Marijke, well after sunset, from this circuit.

Some hiking tips for visitors (and the first one I need to um, obey too. I hate hats):

1. Wear a hat or sunscreen. Our sun will burn a hole in you.

2. Take a sweater and a light waterpoof jacket no matter what the weather looks like. Up there is not like down here.

3. Take water and a snack

4. Tell someone exactly where you are going. Write it down.

5. Do not hike alone.

Mountain rescue: 021-937-0300 (updated February 2020)
More Mountain Rescue info

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February 2020: What happens in ten years? 

My father (23 November 2018), and Ben (9 March 2012) and Teddy (22 January 2020), are no more. 

I no longer have a boss to give me Christmas gift cards, and am my own. I also have far less time for ID'ing South African flowers. 

The Frenchman's generous vacations have shrunk as the flexible start-up he worked for become a publicly traded corporation. This year he spent six days in Cape Town, rather than weeks. He still works his tail off and I never forget it.

In ten years we moved three times, I made three gardens (aside from those designed for others, of course), and wrote two books. In November of that year I went for my first official forage walk, and now I lead my own.

Some things don't change. My hiking companion is still the love of life. And that life is good.

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Flowers for all seasons

My story about how to have a flower-filled garden (almost) all year is in the spring edition of South Africa's Platteland magazine, available now. The double page spread above features - of course -  my mother's garden in Constantia.

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Pride of Madeira

In my mother's Constantia garden the pride of Madeira, a Mediterranean native, is now a focal point. I don't recall having seen it in bloom, before. September in Cape Town is comparable to April in New York, in terms of stage-of-spring, although this Western Cape climate is Mediterannean, with wet winters (when all is well, and this winter it rained, at last) and dry summers.

Its botanical name is Echium candicans, and while it is a gorgeous garden plant it is potentially invasive in South Africa. Still, I have never seen a plant that attracts as many bees and other insects.

It is hard to stop taking pictures of it.

The clump planted at the edge of a bed is leaning sinuously.

And every flower is many flowers.

The garden is a daily delight, with all the plants, the view, dozes of birds and beautiful birdsong. After a short trip with friends to the Karoo last week (Snyderskloof, highly recommended) it is now back to work. Deadlines are pecking at my shoulders.

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Come to a Fall Class or Walk