A little respite for the garden

Kommetjie lay under a blanket of fog from lunchtime yesterday until mid-morning today, while the rest of Cape Town probably saw sunshine. We relished the coolness, as did the garden, and an efficacious watering was undertaken. Diamond drops dangled from every leaf, enticing the sunbirds and Cape White Eyes to flit among the branches, sipping at the drips and shaking their feathers under the spray from the hose. The tightly furled buds of the hibiscus appear dusted with gold before opening into full-blown double blooms, a favourite of the sunbirds. No garden should be without these attractive shrubs if bird life is a priority. The red blooms are also greedily consumed by tortoises, who almost salivate!

My hanging garden of vegetables is growing apace, as are the granadilla plants. The heavy shade has gone from this part of the garden with the removal of large parts of the trees and there is now scope for some real landscaping of an area that has been ignored for the larger part of thirty years. My three score years and ten are nearly up, so I will have to plant fast-growing shrubs rather than lofty trees! The soil is almost white sand, with an oily texture that prevents water from soaking in and it all lies on the surface and evaporates or runs away into the neighbour's garden. Years of adding compost has made no difference, and it really is only good for growing onions and potatoes, but I think I will try a few fig trees now that the baboons haven't visited me for over two years. Looks like fruit will be safe again.