Grass Aloes in Tarlton

Watercolour sketch of a Grass Aloe - Maree©

Now is the time that, as soon as we've had our first veld-fires, these beautiful aloes will start flowering, covering the black landscape with their beautiful red flowers.

Grass Aloes are an appealing group of deciduous aloes. As the name implies, they grow mainly in grasslands subject to winter fires. They are able to survive both fire and frost during the cold dry months. Their leaves and colours resemble their habitat, making them difficult to find when not in flower. These largely miniature aloes have very attractive flowers, making them desirable, if difficult, plants to cultivate. Their growing pattern is closely related to the winter fire cycles of the veld, some species responding directly to burning and producing leaves, flowers and later seed after such events.

This well known grass aloe is commonly found along rocky ridges and rocky slopes on the Witwatersrand and Magaliesberg as well as in mountainous areas of the Northern Province and Mpumalanga. In years gone by it was even more prolific, but numbers have been greatly reduced due to development on the ridges and from harvesting by succulent collectors. A number of different forms are found throughout its distribution range.

The leaves are only slightly succulent, giving the plant a grass-like appearance when not in flower. The leaves are yellowish-green in colour, have numerous white dots on both surfaces, and small teeth along the leaf margins. The inflorescence is an un-branched raceme bearing large (40 mm long), pendulous flowers. The flowers are pinkish-orange in colour with green tips. Numerous brown, papery bracts are visible along the length of the scape.

The plants form dense clumps up to about 30cm high. The narrow fleshy leaves usually form a fan-shape and are borne on very short stems which branch at ground level. The leaves may occasionally form a rosette in older specimens. They are dull green or bluish-green with the upper surface distinctly channelled and the lower surface bearing numerous tuberculate white spots towards the base. The margins of the leaves are armed with soft white teeth.

Aloe verecunda is deciduous and loses all its leaves in winter which only reappear after the first rains in Spring. The plant has thick fleshy roots in which it stores water during the dry winter months.

Attractive dense heads of up to 20 peach-red to scarlet flowers are tubular and up to 30mm in length, becoming pendulous when open. The flowers produce nectar which attracts nectar-feeding Sun birds which in turn act as pollinators for the plant. A greenish-yellow form is also occasionally found

The name Aloe is derived from Alloeh, the Arabic name for this genus and verecunda means modest/chaste (Latin).

Hedgehogs and fires

Just before Winter in March 2008, Golden Girl and Sethlong had 6 babies, first pink and wrinkly with soft little spines, but soon perfect little replicas of their parents.

Unfortunately, soon after they were weaned, their mother, Golden Girl, died. I found her dead early one morning under some grass and all the babies wandering aimlessly around. I couldn't find any cause of why she had died, no apparent injuries, and up until that time she had seemed perfectly healthy.

Sethlong exploring the new area

I gathered all the babies and Sethlong, the father, and moved them to a new enclosure in my bathroom court yard so that I can keep a closer eye on them. An amazing thing happened, quite contrary to Hedgehog behaviour - Sethlong seemed to take over the care of the youngsters. They would follow him all around the garden and at night I would find all 7 of them huddled together in the same box.

One of the new nesting boxes - the photos were taken at night, so I'm sorry about the quality....

It was quite a business, having to put out 7 food bowls every night, and never being sure whether Sethlong was eating the bulk of the food and whether the babies were getting enough or not.

One evening, I found Sethlong kicking out all the grass out of one of the nest boxes - couldn't figure out a reason, unless he wanted to make a new place for himself...

Sethlong threw most of the grass out of one of the nest boxes ... wonder why?

When the babies were about 12 weeks old, I took them all to our local game reserve (Krugersdorp Game Reserve), where they have a huge 4ha aviary and where I felt they would have enough space to ramble to their hearts content and also be safe from predators and the raging veld fires we experience here in South Africa every Winter.

These fires, besides being necessary for the natural evolution of things, cause massive loss of life amongst small mammals, reptiles and birds every year. Many tortoises, hedgehogs and ground nesting birds fall victim to this phenomena. But on a good note, after the fires have either been extinguished or burnt themselves out, you will see big flocks of egrets, herons and storks foraging around for crispy insects.

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Farm talk - Winter in S.A.

After quite a severe winter and struggling with the many 'veld' fires we get here in South Africa every year (we're very much similar to Australia in that regard, and where do they COME from?) - the first spring rains have arrived - and it really amazes me that, no matter HOW much you water the garden, just 5mm of rain and everything is flowering, towering and spreading with zest and zeal.

The fires are always a mystery to me - part of our smallholding is not situated near a road, so it cannot be from somebody carelessly throwing down a match or cigarette, yet the fires would always start 'somewhere' and then spread ferociously the length and breadth of properties in its path, resulting in every possible helping hand rushing in with wet sacks, branches and whatever is available to try and extinguish the demon and rushing to get animals out of harm's way.

Life on a smallholding or small farm is always very much at the mercy of the rain - too little and you have to supplement from the borehole and in any drought situation, there's always the worry that the borehole might dry up. This is every small farmer's greatest fear, as it's costly and time-consuming drilling a new borehole, or two or three, because no matter how strongly the 'water diviner' insists THIS is the place to drill, there is no guarantee that one will find any water. Too much rain and the potatoes might rot.

During one such drought, the water level in our trusty 20-year old borehole dropped to beyond a depth that was viable to try and retrieve, so we opted for drilling a new hole. Now this takes major organisation, because you must remember that, from the minute that your water tanks run dry, you are in a position of having absolutely NO water - no bathing, no cup of tea, no water to cook with (so you end up frying or grilling everything), not even to wash your hands with!

So while the drilling contractor is busy setting up his equipment, we were busy organising with the next door farmer to get some water pumped into our tanks for daily use - pipes and fittings have to be bought and trenches dug for hundreds of meters to get the water into the tanks 10m high - there are equations to be worked out between the Kilowatt strength of the neighbour's pump, the distance to the tanks and the pressure needed to get the water 10m up ...

Once the water from the neighbour has filled the tanks, utter caution is exercised in the usage of the water - every spare drop is used to full capacity for flushing toilets, watering plants and supplying the animals with enough to drink. And possibly weeks later, when the new borehole is finished, all the equipment is removed from the old borehole and fitted to the newly drilled hole, once again trenches are dug for new electrical connections and then, hopefully, beautiful, sweet cool water once again flows.

I wonder how many town folk ever give this precious commodity a second thought ...

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Veld fire tragedy

I think this is where the fire came from
(Click to enlarge)

Today we've just had a huge veld fire sweep through our property, defying all fire breaks, being pushed forward by a strong wind and turning the landscape to black charcoal. On the other side of the fence is our neighbour's property with the fire now just behind them.


The Crowned Plover was forlornly screeching for her young, where she had a nest somewhere in the grass in the black area in front of her. Smoke is still rising in various places and the ground is still hot to the touch.
(Click to enlarge)


The Herons making good use of the misfortune, scavenging for dead insects


An abandoned burnt nest


The North side of our property.