New year, new visit

Last year, on a chilly autumn day at the end of May, I packed for my return to California and bade a fond farewell to the garden and the repertoire of new plants I’d introduced during my long visit. This included three granadilla vines (confined to pots to inhibit sprawling), a dwarf lemon tree, a gorgeous scarlet sage (salvia splendens), several indigenous gaura (Gaura lindheimeri) and black-eyed Susans (Thunbergia alata – I confined them to pot, too, for the same reason). I’d started multiple succulents, some from cuttings, some purchased, and a paddle of prickly pear I’d recycled from a roadside dump. I’d divided clumps of thriving aloe and transplanted half a dozen along the stream’s banks.
Along with an unusual white salvia (rabatt altan Stppsalvia) I’d purchased a wild dagga (Leonotis leonurus) and placed both in a rockery (also home to an adolescent adder). Into a second rockery (no resident adder, as far as I know) I planted sage, oregano, lemon balm, thyme, and lemon grass.
By far my biggest accomplishment had been curtailing runaway cat’s claw creeper, (Dolichandra unguis-cati, formerly Macfadyena unguis-cati), an invasive from South America “declared a category 1b weed in South Africa in terms of the Alien and Invasive Species Regulations (AIS), National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act (Act No 10 of 2004), which necessitates its control or eradication where possible.” The garden had been full of cat’s claw when my mother purchased the house. She’d announced its yellow flowers “lovely” – they are – and allowed the robust vine to reseed as well as to climb into trees, up telephone poles, along overhead electrical cables. After learning it’s status, I’d tried to eradicate it organically, but its seed pods and its root system are designed to stymie eradication. I’d put aside my strong aversion to using herbicides and applied the only effective remedy: targeted poisoning. I’d followed safety directions, mixed the solution, and sprayed each sprig individually. I thought I’d made headway.

Eight months later

Still woozy from jet lag, I toured the mid-summer garden.
One granadilla remains. The scarlet salvia and several succulents are gone, not even a root or leaf remains. The hardy black-eyed Susans, remaining succulents, and aloes show miserly growth. The white salvia and the wild dagga are healthy. The prickly pear is perky. The cat’s claw is resurgent. I’ve already conducted several sorties spraying herbicide.
Despite my disappoiontment with the garden's poor showing, this visit will keep me busy in the garden. Summer weather is hot, stormy, and humid. The garden pond is chock-a-block with tadpoles (pollywogs) and fingerling fish.

Let the gardening begin!

A plant identification app

A friend recommended Plantsnap, a plant identification app that’s proving somewhat helpful. Simply download the app, point your phone camera at a plant you’d like to identify or know more about and voilà, the app may deliver the correct plant, its domestic and botanical name, preferred growing conditions, and so on.
Let me know your experiences with this app (perhaps you’ll have better luck than I’ve had with the free version). Names of or links to similar apps that you’ve found valuable also gratefully accepted.

Easter Sun-day-of-Rest-and-Reflection

Australia’s prime minister urged stay-at-home back in March and again, yesterday, for Easter.   Aussies appear to have overcome the national urge to buy up and hoard the country’s toilet paper supply. Perhaps they’ve sublimated fear into something constructively home-centric: baking toilet paper cakes. 
What comes next? The Great Australian Toilet Paper Bakeoff?

Easter Sun-day-of-Rest-and-Reflection

Back on March 27, first day of lockdown in South Africa, blogging a post a day for three weeks looked feasible. My daily routine already included reading world news, writing, gardening, exercising, visiting my mother, walking the dogs, and spying on garden creatures. Adding a post-a-day would keep insanity away. Wouldn’t it? Turns out, daily blogging quickly becomes debilitating. World news depresses. Trumpeting Trump’s lack of leadership, self-centeredness, and greed depresses. (I barely can watch him on YouTube; why is he allowed to campaign at “press conference” microphones?)
Gardening: me mowing the lawns is the garden equivalent of me cutting my child’s hair: clumpy and uneven. I seek out and murder cat’s claw sprouts. I fill sinkholes.  I collect and redistribute rich topsoil ejected from mole tunnels.
Exercise: I stretch, skip rope, run up and down stairs. It’s better than nothing but nothing like swimming and walking.
I watch mother sew cotton masks for the household and neighbors.
Spying reveals creatures sleep in on Easter Sunday. I haven’t spotted a goldfish in six days.

Yes, my position under lockdown is one of privilege, certainly more privileged than the majority of South Africans. Case in point: as I drafted this post, the gardener phoned. A family man with two young kids living in Mpophemeni Township, he had been scheduled to return to work this week. After we extended his stay away, I asked the status of the township. No infections that he knows of but life, he said, is “bad.” Crowded, anxious, bored, and, I’m sure, dangerous as people with incomes fall prey to people without incomes. (Last year, I asked if he grew veggies in his yard. He laughed, “Too many goats.” Goats and cattle trump people in Mpophemeni, and have priority right of way.)

***

Fewer vehicles on roads mean air is cleaner around the world. Moreover, a study reveals “pre-existing conditions that increase the risk of death for COVID-19 are the same diseases that are affected by long-term exposure to air pollution.” Imagine if governments and people around the world mobilized for climate change with just one percent of the effort expended on fighting Covid-19 infection.
Louis Armstrong sang it: “What a Wonderful World.” Read Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3