Prospect Park Litter action

We will be in the woods tomorrow, rain or shine, and this time our clean up of the Midwood will enjoy some press attention.

Apart from seeing our core group again and meeting a couple of new volunteers, I look forward to the sights and sounds of these lovely woods. Becoming familiar with any natural area is wonderful because one becomes aware of the detail of change in the intervals between visits. The oyster mushrooms will have grown, flowers faded, others opened, leaves turned a deeper green. I'm also curious about how much new trash has been generated and whether the brush barriers around the old tulip trees have been left intact.

If you are suddenly able to join us read this post for details and please RSVP me.

Terrace weekend

I can see my neighbor, Danielle's yellow roses peeping out over the top of her terrace. On this terrace Pat Austin and Abraham Darby roses are covered in buds and should be gorgeous soon, unless they are so damp that they just fall off...I spent a couple of evenings potting up some old thyme that I had divided, as well as the oregano. Hope they do well. I may miss out on thyme flowers.

It rained of course, but held off for long stretches inbetween.

Long enough for the cat to run about and get spooked by Noises from Above (cat Rapture?).

He likes to park himself on the last bluestone slab at the very tip of the roof farm.

Then the sun came out for a bit, and the rain of Iceberg petals continued..

Pitter patter.

I am hording the mint for mojitos.

 A honey bee! I wonder if she belongs to Yann, who lives on Bergen Street with bees and hens. Maybe I can tag them...

I am thinking about getting rid of the tarragon, though it breaks my heart to do so (I've had it for years). I just don't eat it very often and am jealous of the room its pot takes up. More basil! Planted purple and Thai basil. 

The first Pat Austin bloom is opening. They look good now, but last year they hated the long days of July and turned small and crispy...Then again, they did bounce back in September. One forgets..

And New Dawn. Which is putting out new canes that grow inches, I swear, a day. I am measuring. 

And the happiness of the first butterfly.

Update: the butterfly effect?


Unbelievable that in Joplin, Missouri, the mayhem of a perfectly natural phenomenon was about to be felt. We are lucky.

Cover crops

Growing under the terraced cherry trees of the BBG's new herb garden, very striking crimson clover (nitrogen-fixing Trifolium incarnatum) and...what is the grain? Is it winter rye? I love the idea of the herb garden but am not well acquainted with it yet. Although my first serious plant love was for herbs, and I became very interested in what they could be used for, apart from cooking, for some reason I do not go into this garden - something about it keeps me on the outside, looking in. But I love these wild cover crops.

Martha Stewart Living

...will be on the terrace, soon!

I don't know whether to panic, bake a cake, or open some Champagne.

Maybe I'll do all three.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I need volunteers to help me polish the gravel, paint over the blackspot and teach the cat some manners.

(Volunteers to be compensated with cake, bubbly and doses of panic. Fun, yes?)

Kir rouge

A summer staple. Good for sipping inbetween repotting herbs, rearranging pots, or picking up fallen white rose petals. The condensation on the glass starts to drip with little mud rivers, after a while. To make, a splash of good crème de cassis, a slug of medium to light-bodied red wine, a slice of lemon, ice cubes. Stir. 

Elizabeth Scholtz's 90th birthday

Here is Betty's story, which I wrote for The Cape Argus, one of Cape Town's dailies. Click on the page to enlarge for reading (you may then click on it again to enlarge).

I asked for flowers

No words really necessary...

Vince was dispatched to take some pictures of the bluebell woods yesterday, as I was unable to get there myself and I was worried I'd miss them. I also need very good pictures (hence the Frenchman) for a specific project and he arrived in time for a particularly torrential burst of rain and wind. So we went back today. He took loads, so did I. I think - hope! - we have bluebell pictures. The flowers are heartbreakingly beautiful and the air under the enormous green cathedral of trees smells pale blue and just sweet enough.

An actual, happy honey bee.

For more bluebells, look at Vincent's stunning 360' bluebell panorama.

We did a quick tour of the gardens but I lingered as usual in the Native Garden. In time to see the Smilacina bloom.

Clematis ochroleuca. Non-vining clematis fascinate me, and this flower is so particular - a dead straight, poised, slender stem and the tiny bell in pale green and yellow. If I designed clothes these plants would drive me nuts with inspiration.

Pink lady's slipper - Cypripedium acaule. Far lovelier to me than the yellow lady's slipper, and the first time I have seen one. This one was uncaged - all the others are surrounded by wire to protect from critters.

Lupins! I have also never managed to be in the garden at the right time for them - and I can't remember the species.

Ask me what I want, what I really want? And I'll tell you, a stone house above a slope, a terraced meadow below it, the Alps across the valley and lupins in tall green grass, growing on terraces. 

Exactly that.

Thought you'd never ask.