A new season

A new season is unfolding . like a blossom . with petals curled tightly . concealing the beauty within.
- Author Unknown

Nasturtiums from my garden - back-ground image by Gingerbread Snowflakes
Processed in MS PowerPoint

My Nasturtiums have put up the most spectacular show this season and with summer still stretching ahead of us, I'm hoping to get lots of flowers until about April-May. They are an absolute delight to the insects, with sweet nectar accumulating at the base of the flower, luring ants, bees, flies, and even a few wasps. They also flowered right through winter, brightening up the garden just when I needed it most.

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Late-Autumn Portrait

Soft golden browns foretell 

the aging of the year.

Leafless branches curve their shapes

against the autumn sky.

In their naked majesty 

trees proclaim their individuality.

These muted colors, not the pastel of spring

but the palette of autumn

echo the early twilights, 

the cloudy dawns. Rain

dampens and drowns, 

pressing leaves against the frozen ground.

One morning, winter's white sheets

will wrap the earth

preparing it for its seasonal burial.

Now fall fades to sleep

stirring restlessly 

as it turns its way to slumber.

by Pujakins

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I watch for the signs of this season

Autumn is such a  joyful time in the garden.  Every year I watch for the signs of this season with delight.

First comes cooler temperatures and before the leaves get time to change colour, the Swallows are gone. The garden also slows down, seeming to settle into a quiet period of thought, as if planning the grand spring show, planning reassuring delights after winter's short but harsh reign.

I join my garden in pondering the next season, taking on a few cleaning-up jobs. This was once a White Karee that stood tall and its big shady canopy provided wonderful shade in the garden, but for the past several years it has struggled to put out any leaves. This week, with a few cuts of the chainsaw, it met with an end.

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Journal of a Season

“I am enamoured of my journal!” 

- Sir Walter Scott 

For half the year my garden lives a life of it's own. Then it's Spring and I can savour the blooms of successes - and cut my losses. Anything that gets killed by Winter doesn't get re-planted, I'm not a sucker for punishment! 

Pic from an old 1970's 'Victoria' magazine 

 I try and record most of everything that goes on in the garden from new plantings to removing dead items, which birds are new or just visiting or nesting, deaths and births, what the chickens or hedgehogs are up to and I also do sketches of new lay-outs in my Gardening Journal or new features I might want to add. 

This way I get a preview of how it might look and also scribble reminders of when the Bougainvillea or Clematis has to be trimmed back. It's really a scrapbook-in-progress of my house and garden combined, also containing new building and decorating projects as well as (on-going!) renovations. 

Insects play a large role in my garden and I have quite a collection of beetles, moths, butterflies and scorpions. And something some people find a bit weird - I have a large collection of skeletons and skulls of rats, birds and lizards. Whenever I find something dead, I place it in a bucket, wait for it to decay and then pick out the skeleton, wash and clean it up and leave it in bleach for a couple of days. Voila! A perfect specimen, which I showcase in plastic boxes. 

Exoskeleton of a scorpion I found in my garden. 

A few skulls from my collection (below) - the left one is that of a Kestrel, the two top right ones are from rats and the bottom one on the right is from a Laughing Dove. 

My journal also serves as inspiration for some of my sketches and watercolours, like the White Eye that frequents my garden on a regular basis. 

Cape White-Eye - Pen and ink sketch with colour wash in my Moleskine 'Nature' Journal 

My favourite pencil (below) for jotting down notes is made of a twig with lead inserted into the front. 

Writing things down not only acts as a 'release', reducing stress but also allows for a moment of contemplation that allows a clearer perspective on events to emerge. In high school my friends would make fun of me - you're doing your man diary again! So I was always trying to translate experience into words. 

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May Gifts

Inspirational words on a textured back-ground by Kim Klassen 

May. A soft syllable, a gentle name for the best month in the garden year: cool, misty mornings gently burned away with a warming autumn sun, followed by breezy afternoons and chilly nights.  

Aaah, the changing seasons! How I LOVE May! Balmy Autumn days, sitting out on the patio with a cup of tea watching the birds as they revel in the perfect weather! And this is the one month where we seem to be one with the rest of the world - while the Northern Hemisphere is rejoicing in spring, it seems as if we, here in South Africa, have been given a second spring, gently easing into the colder months to come. The discussion of philosophy is over; it's time for work to begin! 

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The last Cosmos of the Season

The show of Cosmos next to the roads in our area hasn't been that great this year and now, as the flowers start to wane, the insects are making the most of the last pollen and the Autumn sunshine. Soon all that will be left is the yellowing leaves and dry stalks. 

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But I've been lucky - the birds carried a Cosmos seed into my garden and I've got this one, very tall plant that, even though it fell over because it is so tall, has blessed me with a couple of beautiful flowers. 

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