One Steppe at a Time

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Janet

Last June, during my visit to Denver with the Garden Bloggers’ Fling, I spent a little extra time in the fascinating Steppe Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens. I had been there once before during a late April visit when wild Tulipa greigii, Fritillaria pallidiflora and Iris bucharica from the Central Asian steppe were in flower. I blogged about my 2018 spring visit at the time.

But a year later, it had filled in nicely and I was fascinated with all the unusual plants. As DBG says on its website, “The Steppe Garden is an ambitiously diverse collection of tough and unique plants from steppe biomes, some of the most rugged habitats on Earth. This quarter-acre garden brings together the North American, South American, Central Asian and Southern African steppes to explore the diversity and similarities of their cold, dry grasslands and shrublands”. Designed by Didier Design Studio and installed in 2016, the garden is still filling in. The photo below (courtesy of Denver Botanic Gardens) shows an aerial view of the Steppe Garden as it was in 2017. I have numbered the individual gardens: 1) Patagonia; 2 and 3) Central Asia; 4) cultivated steppe (hybrids and plants influenced by human hands; 5) Southern Africa; and 6) Intermontane steppe of North America.

*Drone aerial of the Steppe Garden* – 2017

Let’s take a walk through, below. That’s South Africa on the left and the Central North American steppe of the Great Plains on the right. Denver, of course, is part of that steppe biome and DBG has focused on the unique ecology of steppe plants in this space.

As the sign says, the plants found in this garden are native to eastern Colorado and grow in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains.

In June, that means penstemons! Here we see a mix of lavender-purple Rocky Mountain penstemon (P. strictus), pink showy penstemon (P. grandiflorus) and wispy foxtail barley (Hordeum jubatum).

I grow showy penstemon myself at our cottage north of Toronto and I know what a tough hombre it is for dry, stony soil. But it looks so refined in the Steppe Garden, below.

Just outside the Steppe Garden itself is the Laura Smith Porter Plains Garden, featuring plants endemic to what was once native shortgrass prairie, with seeds sourced within 30 miles of Denver. Under the frieze here is soapweed yucca (Yucca glauca) and blue Nuttall’s larkspur.

Walk out the path and you get a feel for the shortgrass steppe or shortgrass prairie of the Great Plains. It’s these wonderful approximations of ‘what used to be’ that make Denver Botanic Gardens so special.

Here is Nuttall’s larkspur (Delphinium nuttallianum), named for Thomas Nuttall, the Yorkshire-born botanist who collected extensively in the United States from the Great Lakes to Kansas, Wyoming and Utah, then to California and Hawaii, followed by time in the Pacific Northwest.

Plains prickly pear cactus (Opuntia polyacantha), another shortgrass native, is in bloom in June.

Let’s go back into the Steppe Garden and enjoy this view over the water to the Central Asian Steppe Garden.

As the sign states, this is the largest steppe on the planet

Visitors walk through a microcosm of the species that grow in the Central Asian Steppe. I love that the gardens here look more like meadows than botanical garden collections, but each geographic section has been carefully sourced and the plantings designed by the Steppe Collections curator and plant explorer Michael H. Bone (more on Mike later).

The Altai mountains are in the Central Asian Steppe and located where China, Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together. And this is the Altai onion, Allium altaicum.

This is Angelica brevicaulis from the mountains of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

I love the Eurasian horned poppies (Glaucium corniculatum) and photographed them growing with roses in the garden of Panayoti Kelaidis, senior curator and director of outreach at Denver Botanic Gardens. (Read my blog on Panayoti’s Denver garden here.)

Most gardeners are very familiar with opium poppy (Papaver somniferum), which has long been naturalized in Central Asia, as well as many other regions of the world..

Phlomoides oreophila is a new plant for me, native from Central Asia to Northwest China.

Leaving the Central Asia Steppe, we come to a part of the garden that is still being developed, the South American Steppe, featuring the plants of Patagonia.

Looking over the water again, we see the main path through the Steppe Garden featuring two beautifully crafted stone sculptures. Behind is the South African Steppe.

Let’s take a closer look at the farthest sculpture, which is actually a beautiful water feature that serves as a special crevice garden for chasmophytes, i.e. plants that make their homes in narrow openings in rocky outcrops in the steppe regions. The open part is a trickling water fountain.

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Look at these little jewels! I photographed the plants below, including the lilac-flowered Iberis simplex (I. taurica), in April 2018. It grows in the Taurus Mountains in Southern Turkey.

Here is the top of the water feature in June 2019….

….. and another view. What exquisite stonework!

The South African Steppe is the star here, in my opnion, given DBG’s long history with plants from the region.. Let’s have a look at some of the plants, such as….

…. the strange-looking caterpillar grass (Harpochloa falx).

Apart from plants growing in the large, rocky structures, there are some beautiful container vignettes that will inspire visitors with restricted space – like this assemblage of species from southern Africa.

I love this border with blue cape forget-me-not (Anchusa capensis)and magenta ice plant (Delosperma cooperi).

And as a confirmed bee photographer, it was fun to capture a honey bee nectaring on the anchusa.

Here’s a long view of this section in the South African Steppe.

South Africa, of course, represents the largest floristic province in the world, and the Steppe Garden divides plants into the Western South African Steppe….

…. and the much more lush Eastern South African Steppe.

There is a lot of fireweed (Senecio macrocephalus) in bloom in the eastern steppe in June.

And kniphofias, of course, are signature South African plants.

Look at this brilliant stone work.

Another grouping of containers highlights plants of the Eastern South African Steppe.

But Denver Botanic Gardens is famous for its ice plants, and they are featured prominently here in the part of the Steppe Garden devoted to garden introductions.

This one is called Delosperma Jewel of Desert Grenade. Isn’t it lovely?

More examples of the delosperma cultivated rainbow of colours, as seen in the South Africa Steppe.

I know I’ve probably missed a lot of detail and might even have mixed up the odd steppe region in my rush through the garden, but I do consider myself fortunate to have met the garden’s curator, Mike Bone, aka #steppesuns, below, this March in Toronto when he spoke to members of the Ontario Rock Garden Society. Mike is an enthusiastic plant propagator, seed collector and explorer who has spent decades working at DBG, acquiring plants from the four great steppe regions of the world and getting them displayed not just at his own garden, but other botanical gardens throughout the world. I know his mentor, Panayoti Kelaidis is very fond of Mike – or “Ghengis Bone” as he calls him in this blog he wrote about travelling with him in Mongolia.

They even collaborated on a 2015 book called Steppes: The Plants and Ecology of the World’s Semi-Arid Regions,co-authored by Dan Johnson (whose garden I blogged about recently), Mike Kintgen and Larry Vickerman, all of Denver Botanic Gardens. As the book’s description states, “steppes occupy enormous areas on four continents. Yet these ecosystems are among the least studied on our planet. Given that the birth and evolution of human beings have been so intimately interwoven with steppe regions, it is amazing that so few attempts have been made to compare and quantify the features of these regions.”

I’m so happy to have had the chance to visit DBG’s fascinating Steppe Garden, and look forward to exploring it in other seasons in the future.

Singing Malaika in the Serengeti

Posted on March 13, 2020 by Janet

I have been very fortunate to travel to Africa three times. In October 2014 (my second trip), we visited South Africa as part of a garden tour hosted by Donna Dawson. Apart from visiting Table Mountain and Kirstenbosch National Botanic Garden and wonderful gardens like Harold Porter National Botanical Gardens, Babylonstoren and Makaranga, we took part in a safari at the Southern Camp of Kapama Private Game Reserve. I wrote about that lovely adventure in three blogs starting here.

Kapama was adjacent to Kruger National Park and even though our time there was short (2 days), we saw an abundance of wild animals, including a black-maned lion who roused himself from sleep while we sat in our vehicle and watched.

In 2016 (my third trip), we attended a wedding at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Laikipia, north Kenya, followed by a few days on safari at a tented camp called Kicheche in Ol Pejeta Conservancy, below.

Our Kicheche guide Albert was very skilled, and I wrote a 3-part blog on our wonderful safaris at Kicheche starting here.

The most thrilling experience there – in fact one of my most exciting experiences anywhere – was watching two cheetah brothers mark territory, play and wash each other. Have a look at my YouTube video, below.

Kicheche was rustic (if a bush tent with a bathroom can be called rustic). Lewa Conservancy was different, in that it was also a festive social occasion, shared with friends from Canada and Kenya. Here I am with Lewa’s wonderful Maasai lodge manager, Karmushu.

But it was also much more luxurious. Thus, our beautiful Lewa Wilderness accommodation was set on the edge of a hillside leading down into a valley, with a little terrace and chairs outside. That proximity to the wild made our first night there very memorable.

Though we had spent a few days acclimatizing in the Nairobi suburb of Karen (including touring ‘Out of Africa’ writer Karen Blixen’s house) prior to flying into Lewa Downs on their own air strip….

…..we were very ready to sleep, especially given the welcoming four-poster beds in our little house, below. So I was in a dead sleep in the middle of the night when I awoke to a strange sound, like shells sliding slowly along a hard surface, very nearby. It was as if…. as if….. a large animal was dragging its paws as it settled itself onto the still warm polished concrete patio outside our shutters! “Doug!” I whispered. “There’s something outside!” I had to call a little louder to wake him up. “Doug, listen! I think it could be… I think it’s… a lion!” Then came the sounds again. Lions have retractable claws on their paws! How sturdy were those windows? Had we shut the door tight? “I’m getting into your bed,” I whispered, lifting the mosquito netting, putting my bare feet on the floor and scooting under his netting. We lay there, listening. Then there came a huge heaving sigh, just feet away “Uuuuahhhhahh.” It had to be a lion! We stayed awake for a long time listening, but eventually fell asleep again. By morning when we peeked out our shutters, there was no sign of our guest. We were excited to share the news with our friends under the pergola at breakfast, but before we could say anything, someone blurted out, “Hey! Did you guys see the lion this morning?”

Between wedding events, we were able to enjoy a few short game drives at Lewa.

At 62,000 acres (250 km²), it was established as a conservancy in 1995 on the site of a cattle ranch that had been owned by the Craig/Douglas family from 1922. Before becoming a conservancy, the family had established the Ngare Sergoi Rhino Sanctuary to protect endangered black rhinos from poaching for their horns. It is estimated that Kenya’s black rhino population had declined from 20,000 in the mid-1970s to just a few hundred by 1986, when the sanctuary was formed by the Craigs and Mrs. Anna Merz. We watched a mother black rhino and her calf being walked by rangers….

….. who waited while the rhinos grazed.

We saw some of Lewa’s estimated 400 migratory elephants as they came close to our vehicle…..

….. and dispersed to eat acacia foliage nearby.

We watched a critically-endangered Grévy’s zebra (Equus grevyi) – the largest living wild equid – feeding on grasses.

There were beautiful reticulated giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata) browsing on thorn trees. The population of reticulated giraffes in east Africa has declined by half in the past 30 years from 36,000 to around 15,000, leading in 2018 to their ‘endangered’ designation by the IUCN. With wildlife conservancies like Lewa offering protection, their numbers are now starting to rebound.

The giraffe neck is one of nature’s miracles. Giraffes are the tallest land mammals extant. The long neck was originally thought to have evolved in order for giraffes to compete successfully in browsing on high trees, i.e. the “competing browsers” hypothesis. But since giraffes feed during the dry season on low trees with their necks bent, as in the above photo, that theory has been challenged in favour of the “necks-for-sex” hypothesis. Evidently, the longest, strongest necks on males — used in their ‘necking’ form of fights — help eliminate romantic competition and therefore attract female mates.

Both hypotheses are given credence today. And whatever the case, the reticulated giraffe is a beautiful animal….

….. with a very sweet face.

I was fascinated by this video of Lewa staff working to remove a metal ring from a giraffe’s leg.

I’ve always been interested in nature’s evolutionary version of a “harem”, as with impalas, Kenya’s most common antelope species. Below we see a herd of female impalas and their dominant male.

There were vervet monkeys at Lewa, too.

The photo below shows a monkey walking the railing at Lewa Wilderness Lodge’s outdoor dining pergola, with the expanse of the beautiful conservancy behind it.

Our game drive wound around a promontory rising out of the savannah.

We saw lots of interesting birds at Lewa as well, including the beautiful superb starling, below.

The blue-naped mousebird had the familiar tuft of our male blue jays and cardinals.

Near Lewa’s abundant farm beds, there were garden areas with flowering aloes where the Hunter’s sunbird was nectaring, below.

This beautiful tapestry defines “garden” at Lewa….

And this.

I had a special tour of the Lewa farm by Will Craig. There were bananas, mangoes, papayas, citrus, pomegranates and all types of vegetables growing in rows.

Fragrant blackthorn trees (Senegalia mellifera) were in flower and alive with honey bees.

******

But where’s the music here? Given that this is the 20^th blog in #mysongscapes of winter 2020, we can’t just be gallivanting around African savannahs looking at elephants!

Well, that’s where my first trip to Africa comes in, way back in 2007. As a 30^th anniversary gift to ourselves, we signed up for a safari to several prominent game parks in Kenya and Tanzania, including Amboseli, Ngorongoro Crater, Maasai Mara, Tarangire and the Serengeti. It was an opportunity to be close to wild animals, like the elderly lion below taking a few moments of shade beside a safari vehicle in Ngorongoro Crater. It is also my very favourite travel experience.

Now I’m going to set the scene. We’re in the majestic Serengeti. Savannah grasses as far as the eye can see. The name “Serengeti” derives from a word used by the Maasai to describe the area, siringet. It means “the place where the land runs on forever”

It’s ‘sundowners’ time, i.e. cocktail hour…. and our safari group has been served drinks by our wonderful guides, who hail from tribes in both Kenya and Tanzania, which is where the Serengeti is located. (I was given this small photo of Doug and me on the occasion.)

I needed my glass of wine that day, for I had resolved to sing a little song on the Serengeti. I do love to sing. Not on stage, but at family sing-alongs at the cottage on summer nights; helping to lead the carols and songs at our annual Christmas skating party; at the occasional industry karaoke party; and… loudly… in the shower. The song I had in mind was one I’d heard as a young teen in Vancouver, when my mom took me to see Harry Belafonte and his special guest singer from South Africa, Miriam Makeba. I think it was 1960, Miriam would have been 27 years old. I was transfixed by this young woman who could emanate clicks from somewhere deep in her throat, in the manner of the Xsoha language of her home country. One of the songs she sang was The Click Song. Over the decades, Miriam Makeba would become known as ‘Mama Africa’. Most of all, I loved a song that Belafonte and Makeba sang together in Swahili – the language of Kenya and Tanzania – called ‘Malaika’, or ‘My Angel’ in English. Written by Adam Salim in 1945, it told of a young man who was sad because he didn’t have enough money for the dowry to marry his sweetheart. It appeared a few years later on an album I bought, below.

Over the years, I played the album and sang the song over and over, until I knew the words by heart. So on that occasion in 2007, when I’d had a few glasses of wine to give me courage, I left our group and walked over to where our guides were standing, waiting for us to finish. “I have a song to sing to you,” I said. They laughed. “Okay!” Then I proceeded to sing all three verses of Malaika. When I finished, they burst into applause. “Mama Africa!” they cried. I was so happy (and relieved) and I sang it again the next night for our friends as we travelled in our safari van under the moonlight from a barbecue dinner on the savannah. I don’t have a recording of that cocktail recital (thank goodness), but I do have a video I made featuring my own photos of our 2007 safari with Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba singing ‘Malaika’ as soundtrack.

*******

MALAIKA (Adam Salim 1945, sung by Harry Belafonte and Miriam Makeba)

Malaika
Nakupenda malaika
Malaika
Nakupenda malaika

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Ningekuoa mali we
Ningekuoa dada
Nashindwa na mali sina we
Ningekuoa malaika
Nashindwa na mali sina we
Ningekuoa malaika

Pesa
Zasumbua roho yangu
Pesa
Zasumbua roho yangu

Nami nifanyeje, kijana mwenzio
Nashindwa na mali sina we
Ningekuoa malaika
Nashindwa na mali sina we
Ningekuoa malaika

Kidege
Hukuwaza kidege
Kidege
Hukuwaza kidege

Nami nifanyeje, kijana mwenzio
Nashindwa na mali sina, we
Ningekuoa malaika
Nashindwa na mali sina, we
Ningekuoa malaika

**********

This is the 20th blog in #mysongscapes series of winter 2020 that combine music I love with my photography. If you enjoyed reading it, have a look at the others. And please leave a comment if you enjoyed any of them.

Joni Mitchell’s ‘Night in the City’;
Paul Simon’s ‘Kodachrome’ and my life in photography;
Vietnam and Songs of Protest;
Galway Bay and memories of my grandfather and Ireland;
Simon and Garfunkel’s Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme;
The John Denver lullaby I sang to my first grandchild, Today While the Blossoms Still Cling to the Vine.
Gordon Lightfoot for a Snow Day
Madame George by Van Morrison – my favourite song in the world
Brown Eyed Girl(s) – Van Morrison’s classic and my black-eyed susans
Raindrops – on flowers and in my gardens
Miss Rumphius and the Lupines
Bring me Little Water – on water in the garden
Amsterdam… Spring Sunshine – a Dutch travelogue and a brilliant Broadway play
Both Sides Now – a reflection on clouds and Joni Mitchell
Crimson & Clover and Other Legumes – a love letter to the pea family, Fabaceae
Mexico – James Taylor serenades in my travelogue of a decade of trips to Mexico
Crystal Blue Persuasion – blue flowers in the garden
My Bonny – remembering the late Laura Smith (and my dad)
Up on the Roof – a Carole King love-in and a lot of green roofs

Los Angeles County Arboretum in January

Posted on January 6, 2019 by Janet

Since it is now January, I thought it would be fun to introduce you to a botanical garden I visited twice last January, three weeks apart and each time on a one-day Los Angeles stopover on our trip to and from New Zealand. (When flying in winter, we try to build in a ‘bad weather safety net’ to make sure we arrive on time at a tour launch in a distant location.) In all my visits to Los Angeles, I’d never been to the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, which is located in Arcadia, east of Pasadena, near the San Gabriel mountains. Using Uber, it was a $50 ride (about 50 minutes) from our airport hotel, but you can also reach it via the Metro Gold Line train, Arcadia stop, and bus from downtown L.A. (On my second visit, my husband elected to jump out at nearby Santa Anita Racetrack to take in some horse races). Before you go, be sure to download the map, below (click to enlarge or go to their website and download an even larger version) so you don’t miss any of the gardens on this 127-acre property and historic site; even with two visits, I didn’t get to the greenhouse and some of the more remote features.

Prior to its opening as an arboretum in 1948, the garden was part of a tract of land that had originally been the territory of the indigenous Tongva people, the Gabrieliño. In September 1771, the Spanish colonists opened the Misión de San Gabriel Arcángel here, the fourth of an eventual twenty-one California missions. In 1821, Mexico (which had gained independence from Spain) began the process of selling all mission lands to rancheros. In 1838, a 13,319-acre parcel, Rancho Santa Anita, was deeded to naturalized Scottish immigrant John Reid and his Gabrieliño wife Victoria, who had converted and become part of the mission. Over the next century, the property was divided and changed hands many times, but its most colourful owner was definitely Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin, the Ohio-born land speculator, gold mining investor and four-times-married womanizer (he survived two shootings from jilted paramours) who bought 8,500 acres of Rancho Santa Anita for $200,000 in 1875. He soon built the Queen Anne style white cottage that sits beside Lake Baldwin to this day, where the photo below of him and family members was taken. After loaning money to a failing bank that later closed its doors, he cashed in the mortgages that had defaulted and bought most of the San Gabriel Valley, including what would become the towns of Arcadia, Monrovia and Baldwin Hills. And it was the horse-lover Baldwin who built the first Santa Anita Racetrack on his land; it opened in 1907 but it closed two years later when gambling was made illegal and later burned down. The racetrack clubhouse my husband visited while I toured the arboretum was built in 1934.

Early January

My principal reason for visiting the arboretum was the winter flowering of the aloes. I’d been to the succulent garden at The Huntington in late February in previous years, and so many aloes had finished flowering that I was determined to return to California to see the early winter bloom. So I quickly found the Aloe Trail in the African Garden. The arboretum features over 180 different aloe species.

As I listened briefly to a botanist who was guiding a group around the collection, I noticed a northern mockingbird in Aloe marlothii, the large mountain aloe of South Africa. This aloe is easy to recognize because of its single stem and candelabra arrangement of several slanted- to horizontally-arranged dense racemes of tubular dark orange flowers.

There were beautiful aloes everywhere. Sadly, many were unlabelled, like the one below. But thanks to my friend Jim Bishop in San Diego, I have learned that this one is Aloe cameronii.

It wasn’t long before I saw one of the arboretum’s famous peacocks, wandering around one of the many South African cape aloes (A. ferox), which were at peak bloom. The peacocks are the descendants of several pairs that Lucky Ellis imported from India in 1879; over the next century or so, they found the arboretum (and the surrounding residential neighbourhood!) much to their liking.

For a photographer, the lovely tilt-head aloe (A. speciosa) is always a joy to capture just as the flowers are opening.

Aloe vryheidensis bore lovely yellow and orange flowers.

If you love aloes, you could spend hours in this collection alone, which features over 180 different species! The plants below were also unlabelled, but Jim Bishop tells me they are Aloe vanbalenii.

With its tall stems bearing the brown remnants of previous years’ foliage, Aloe candelabrum is a distinctive plant. It has now been recognized as a separate species from A. ferox, with which it was previously grouped.

I was lured briefly beyond the aloe garden into the Madagascar collection, and a planting of several stunning, silver Bismarckia nobilis palms, my favourite palm species.

This is bismarckia’s fruit.

But there was still so much to see and my time was limited, since we were on an evening flight to New Zealand. So I carried on along the Aloe Trail past spiky orange sticks-on-fire (Euphorbia tirucalli) and the yellow daisies of grey-leaved euryops (E. pectinatus).

Look at this amazing display!

I stood for a while and watched a male Allen’s hummingbird (Sesalaphorus sasin) in the aloes turn his head, showing off the iridescent color transformation of his gorget feathers. Then I headed on into the arboretum.

As an easterner, I’d never given much thought to “autumn colour” in California, especially in L.A. But I was pleasantly surprised by some species, given that this was January and at home our fall-coloured leaves had fallen long ago. This is the Chinese tallow tree (Triadica sebifera).

And this is a wine connoisseur’s favourite tree, the cork oak (Quercus suber).

I walked past Baldwin Lake, named for the notorious Lucky, who had deepened it and created a retaining wall. As the next photo of a posted garden sign reads, the lake was originally part of the local Raymond Fault, which branches from the major San Andreas Fault. It begins in the nearby San Gabriel Mountains and runs straight west under the town of Arcadia and the Santa Anita racetrack, later forming the hills of south Pasadena, then west to Dodger Stadium, the Hollywood Hills, the Santa Monica Mountains, Beverly Hills, Thousand Oaks, Malibu and out into the Pacific Ocean and the Channel Islands and beyond to where it stops. California’s geological history is dramatic; when I visit the state, I often forget that much of its built-up area lies over the north-south San Andreas Fault, whose last major earthquakes were the Loma Prieta in 1989 (Oakland) and the 1906 San Francisco quake and resulting fire.

The sign below asks for public support in restoring Baldwin Lake, following years of drought, mandatory water conservation measures and well-drilling from neighbouring cities. In 1991, the lake dried up completely and the fish had to be removed; the following season, the water table rose and the lake refilled.

Drought is a fact of life in California, one to which most native plants are well adapted, unlike the many water-dependent species in a botanical garden. So it was gratifying to come upon the Water Conservation Garden. I was interested in the plants chosen for this garden, especially Australian species like Grevillea and Maireana. It seems to me that this would be a great spot to focus on a large display of attractive, residential-scale landscapes using the most drought-tolerant of California plants – as an educational feature for visitors who are increasingly looking to enjoy gardens that require little water.

Given the time of year, the Grace Kallam Perennial Garden was mostly structure, with little in flower.

It would be fun to return to the perennial garden some spring (well, and the Huntington, too, of course!)

Nearby, I was enchanted by the myriad autumn colours of ‘Burgundy’ sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua). Presumably, leaf fall (abscission) is much delayed in such a mild climate, which accounts for these pretty leaves hanging on into winter.

Some outstanding specimens in the magnolia collection were already bursting into flower. This is Magnolia x soulangeana ‘Lilliputian’. There are over sixty magnolia species and cultivars in the garden.

Lavender was still in flower in The Herb Garden and it was charming to see…..

…..the formal knot garden here. The herb garden was designed and laid out in 1955 by the Southern California unit of the Herb Society of America. It was renovated in the 1990s.

I cornered this bride and groom doing their wedding photography in the herb garden, and asked if they’d pose for a photo for my blog. Aren’t they fine looking?

Double-flowered apricot was resplendent in the herb garden.

I spied Lucky Baldwin’s Queen Anne’s cottage (once known as Baldwin’s Belvedere) behind a ginkgo tree, its leaves turning bright yellow.

The Citrus Grove was full of fruit. It was planted in 1961.

I breezed quickly through the Victorian Rose Garden, also installed in the late 1950s by the Herb Society, stopping to admire this yellow ‘Symphony’ shrub rose from David Austin Roses, whose renowned founder died in England just weeks ago at the age of 92. This appreciation in The Guardian by my friend Victoria Summerley captures the man and his passion for roses.

As I walked along the road around Lake Baldwin, I passed a planting of prickly-pears (Opuntia ficus-indica). Sadly, there wasn’t enough time to head up to Tallac Knoll to see the plumeria grove there.

On my right was the Bamboo Collection.

Then I was standing across the lake looking directly at the Queen Anne Cottage through the boughs of a ‘Paulensis’ pink trumpet tree (Handroanthus impetiginosus). This tree (formerly in the genus Tabebuia) was introduced to California via seed collected in the wild in ‘50s and ‘60s by hobbyist collectors like Dr. Samuel Ayyres, Jr., the local dermatologist, plant lover and later nursery owner who led the search for a site for the arboretum in the late 1940s. As it states in Dr. Ayres’s 1987 obituary, “The committee chose a 111-acre parcel in Arcadia where developer Elias J. (Lucky) Baldwin had once owned a ranch. The acreage had been purchased by Times publisher Harry Chandler, who intended to subdivide it. But Ayres persuaded Chandler to keep it off the market until he could find some financing. The state and county eventually purchased it for $320,000 and the Arboretum became a reality in 1948.”

Seedlings of the pink trumpet tree were planted in the arboretum in the 1970s; later, the cultivars ‘Pink Cloud’ and ‘Raspberry’ were developed here. The trumpet tree below sits near the entrance from the parking lot.

There were magnificent trees in this area, like this floss silk tree (Ceiba speciosa ‘Arcadia’), which seems to be a more rare yellow-flowered form of a tree that normally has pink blooms.

This Brazilian shaving brush tree (Pseudobombax grandiflorum) still had a few fluffy blossoms.

I took the path through the Cycad Collection, stopping to admire some impressive specimens.

The one below is Ceratozamia mexicana, aka “El Mirador”.

My last view from the garden was of the lovely San Gabriel Mountains.

*****

Then it was time to Uber back to LAX to check out of our hotel and catch our evening flight to Auckland launching a 3-week American Horticultural Society garden tour of the north and south islands of New Zealand. I wrote blogs about most of those gardens and natural sights in 2018. Here are a few of my favourites:

Connells Bay Sculpture Park near Auckland, North Island
New Zealand, the Fernery Nation
Liz Morrow’s tranquil Omaio near Auckland, NorthIsland
Bay of Islands & Māori Culture, Paihia, NorthIsland
Bungy-Jumping and Botanizing in Queenstown, South Island
A Night on Doubtful Sound in Fjordland National Park, South Island
Dunedin Botanic Garden, South Island
Hiking Under Aoraki Mount Cook, South Island
The Garden at Akanaui near Ashburton, South Island
Sir Miles Warren’s masterful Ohinetahi near Christchurch, South Island
Fisherman’s Bay Garden on the Banks Peninsula near Christchurch, South Island
Josie Martin’s amazing Giant’s House Garden in Akaroa, South Island

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I didn’t quite finish my blog reveries on the remaining gardens on New Zealand’s North Island, so stay tuned in 2019 for a few more!

*****

Late January

When we landed in Los Angeles at the end of our New Zealand trip on January 28th, we had almost a full day before departing L.A. for Toronto. So, being a creature of extreme horticultural habit (and having already seen the lovely Getty Centre gardens), I elected to make a return Uber trip to Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanical Garden, with my husband getting out at Santa Anita racetrack. This time, I began by visiting the Celebration Garden, which features six different theme gardens. Once again, the peacocks were holding court, this one in the California Native Plant garden atop a fence near the red fruit of toyon (Hetermoles arbutifolia). In the 1920s, this shrub had become so popular as a Christmas decoration in Los Angeles that the State of California passed a law prohibiting its picking without permission.

Honey bees foraged on the pink blossoms of lemonade berry (Rhus integrifolia), below.

Further along I watched a big, black California carpenter bee (Xylocopa californica) foraging in the flowers of Caesalpinia cacalaco ‘Smoothie’, from Mexico.

In another garden, the beautiful Himalayan Michelia doltsopa ‘Silver Cloud‘ was in flower and perfuming the area around it.

I wished I had time to keep walking to the Australia Garden, but I was curious to check on the aloes. So I headed back via the Desert Display Garden…..

….. which is full of succulent and cacti treasures. Love all the golden barrel cacti (Echinocactus grusonii)!

This is beautiful whale’s tongue agave (A. ovatifolia). Agaves, by the way, all come from the New World and are native from South America up into desert regions of North America; they are in the family Asparagaceae. Aloes hail from the Old World – Africa, Madagascar, Middle East – and are now in the family Asphodelaceae.

As a photographer, it’s always fun to shoot a plant like resin spurge (Euphorbia resinifera).

Then I was back in the African Garden, where the long season of aloes was still impressive, with new species flowering and the ones I’d seen 3 weeks earlier now winding down. This is the attractive hybrid Aloe x principis, believed to be a natural cross between Aloe ferox and Aloe arborescens.

Dawe’s aloe (Aloe dawei), below, is native to the mountains of central and east Africa, including the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda. This is the cultivar ‘Jacob’s Ladder’.

Aloe lineata is from South Africa.

The flowers of Aloe barbertoniae were just beginning to open.

Another big planting of an unidentified aloe.

Aloe rubroviolacea was attracting honey bees…..

…. as were the aging flowers of Aloe ferox.

I had more time now to visit the Madagascar Spiny Forest with its peculiar species. This excellent article recounts the development of the garden, which opened in 2007.

The tall Pachypodium geayi raised its spined branches to the blue California sky, alongside tall Aloe vaombe and the spiny alluaudias. It’s easy to see the effects of evolutionary pressure here, when a diverse plant population on an African island evolves to feature protections – height or spines – against ancient animal herbivores, likely ancestors of native Madagascar lemurs.

The Malagasy tree aloe (A. vaombe) hosted a perching hummingbird, which I think is a female Anna’s (Calypte anna).

The alluaudias – all six species are endemic to Madagascar – are among the most unusual plants in the garden, with their columns of small leaves and various spines. This is A. humbertii.

It was fun to see lavender scallops (Bryophyllum fedtschenkoi) in bloom, a succulent plant I know from the desert house at Toronto’s Allan Gardens.

One of the world’s most beautiful palms, Madagascar’s Bismarckia nobilis has pride of place in the collection, and I spent several minutes walking through the grove.

And, of course, there was a peacock peeking through the fronds – a fitting image to carry with me as I walked back to the entrance to meet my husband (he didn’t win at the horse races… imagine that!) and call our Uber to take us to LAX and our flight back home – and to winter. What a lovely break we’d had, in the southern hemisphere and here at the delightful Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden.

******

If you enjoyed this blog, you might like to read my blog on Lotusland in Santa Barbara.

A Visit to Kirstenbosch

Posted on June 17, 2015 by Janet

Our fabulous South Africa garden tour is drawing to an end, but heading to our destination on Day 12, I feel that familiar sense of anticipation I experience walking through the entrance of London’s RHS Kew Gardens or New York Botanical Garden. For like those august centres of botanical excellence, Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden in Cape Town has long been a mecca for passionate horticulturists from every corner of the globe. Situated on the lower eastern slope of Table Mountain, Kirstenbosch’s designed gardens cover 36 hectares (89 acres), which are a small part of the entire 528 hectare (1305 acre) Kirstenbosch estate including large mountainside tracts of the protected Cape Floral Kingdom vegetation known as fynbos, as well as natural forests. The map below shows the central gardens and the adjacent mountain estate.

Coming through the entrance, we are treated to a “What’s in Bloom” display: such a wonderful idea, and one that many public gardens have adopted to help educate visitors. Looking at the contents of the little vases, I cannot wait to get outside.

We have a half-day scheduled here, but I’ve already decided to stay through the afternoon and take a taxi back to our hotel. So I begin my walk behind our lovely tour guide as he tells our group about one of the garden’s signature plants: the golden-yellow bird-of-paradise (Strelitzia reginae) developed here at Kirstenbosch over 20 years of selection and cross-pollination, and named ‘Mandela’s Gold’ for South Africa’s revered hero.

Founded in 1913, Kirstenbosch is rightly considered one of the top botanical gardens in the world, and their mission has been to celebrate and conserve South African native plants. We walk through garden areas devoted to plants grown for traditional use (edible or medicinal) including the brilliant star flower (Hypoxis hemerocallidea), described thus: “An ancient Basuto headache remedy: Place a few drops of blood from your head in a star flower corm and bury it.”

Ochna serrulata is also called Mickey Mouse bush, because of the similarity of the fruit to that cartoon character (its flowers are yellow). Zulu people call it umbomvane, and use a decoction as medicine.

South Africa is home to many pelargonium species, including some that play a role in the breeding history of our own bedding geraniums. Here are 5 Kirstenbosch plants from the Geraniaceae family: 1) Pelargonium tongaense or the Tonga pelargonium prefers shade, growing under trees in the forests of Tongaland in KwaZulu-Natal province. 2) Geranium incanum is called carpet geranium and has been used by African and European people to make a tea, called bergtee in Afrikaans. It is also a great bee plant. 3) Pelargonium betulinum or the birch-leaf pelargonium; 4) Pelargonium salmoneum grows in coastal settings on the Eastern Cape; it is fragrant. 5) Pelargonium ionidiiflorum grows among rocks in the Eastern Cape bushveld.

We pass by gardens devoted to plants that are endangered in the wild.

Having been to Gordon’s Bay on our way to see the whales at Hermanus, it’s interesting to see the endangered Gordon’s Bay pincushion (Leucospermum bolusii).

….and get a closeup view of this garden acraea butterfly (Acraea horta) nectaring on it.

According to the interpretive sign, the six remaining wild populations of the rush-leaf crane flower (Strelitzia juncea) are at risk from invasive aliens and illegal collecting.

Here’s a recently-discovered member of the Crassulaceae called the cliff cotyledon (C. pendens) which occurs only on the sheer cliff faces of the Mbashe River.

Here are the unusual flower spikes of lobster flower (Plectranthus neochilus ‘Peppermint Cream’).

Kirstenbosch has an impressive Cycad collection. Alas, it’s a very sunny day – as a photographer, I would love to be able to stay a week or so just to come back and photograph this gorgeous place in better light!

As we walk up through the gardens (you’re always climbing the slope at Kirstenbosch), a spotted eagle owl (Bubo africanus) dozes on a branch above us.

Naturally, there are many agapanthus species, all of which are native to S. Africa. This one is A. caulescens ssp. angustifolius.

I love the unusual inflorescences of common pagoda (Mimetes cucculatus), which is called “rooisstompie” in Afrikaans. Like many plants that grow in the fynbos, common pagoda is adapted to wildfire and will reprout from the ashes.

Grassy members of the Restionaceae family have become very popular in the parts of North America where they’re hardy. In South Africa, they’ve long been used as roof thatching. This one is called Albertinia thatching reed (Thamnocortus insignis).

Restio multiflorus is not used for thatching, but some restio species have been used to make brooms. This species is popular in landscaping.

The bamboo-like culms (stems) of horsetail restio (Elegia capensis) are distinctive for the tufts of wiry branches that form along with papery, brown sheaths at the segments of the internodes. Flower spikelets form on top of the plants, with male and female flowers on separate plants, which are wind-pollinated.

When I reach the sign below at the top of the “gardened” slope at Kirstenbosch, I am ready to circle back down into some of the collections of Proteaceae. I would dearly love to keep climbing into the fynbos, but I must head down to meet the others in our group at the garden’s Silvertree Restaurant for lunch. (However, unlike them, I plan to stay in the garden all afternoon to make sure I don’t miss anything).

Speaking of the restaurant, one of the direction routes on the sign above is the Silvertree Trail, and it is a thrill to see all sizes of silvertrees (Leucadendron argenteum) – a plant some people consider to be the most beautiful tree of all. Leucadendron comes from the Greek word for “white”, leuka, and the word for “tree”, dendron. Thus, the silvertree’s iconic colour and name (witteboom in Afrikaans) is what gave the genus its Latin name in the 1690s. In the late 1970s there were 6,850 silvertrees counted in Kirstenbosch’s expanses, but 25 years later only 1,000 were found, leading conservationists to speculate that habitat loss through gum tree forestation and urban sprawl could result in their being endangered in the wild by 2025. Fortunately, much of the silvertree population is in protected areas here, which will help save it.

Here are two more Kirstenbosch leucadendrons: lineleaf conebush, L. linifolium, at left and thymeleaf protea, L. thymifolium, right. According to Plantzafrica, the thymeleaf protea is critically endangered and could be extinct by 2025.

Perhaps the most iconic of all the Proteaceae family is the magnificent king protea, Protea cynaroides, which is the national flower of South Africa. Look at this spectacular, complex flower (there are 81 garden varieties of king protea), understandably popular in the flower market of Cape Town and with floral designers throughout the world.

Much rarer is the red Transvaal Mountain protea, aka Transvaal sugarbush, (P. rubropilosa) which hails from Mpumalanga province, specifically the Blyde Canyon area which we visited a week earlier. Its name comes from the red hairs on the underside of the floral bracts….

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which are much clearer in my next photo, which also shows the protea beetle (Trichostetha fascicularis). Though fynbos proteas are pollinated by Cape sunbirds and sugarbirds and have no scent, this non-fynbos protea has evolved a perfume to attract the protea beetle for pollination.

The high reaches at Kirstenbosch are spangled with brilliant pincushions (Leucospermum sp.) in all colours. This is ribbon pincushion (Leucospermum tottum) with Cape snow (Syncarpha vestita).

How thrilling to stand up here amidst this wonderful native flora, with Cape Town stretched out in the distance below.

I feel fortunate to be visiting South Africa when so many pincushions are in bloom. Here are a dozen I found at Kirstenbosch; their names are listed below the photo.

1. Leucospermum cuneiforme – Wart-stemmed or Wedge pincushion

2. L. tottum – Ribbon pincushion

3. L. muirii – Albertinia pincushion

4. L. formosum – Silver-leaf wheel pincushion

5. L. bolusii – Gordon’s Bay pincushion

6. L. cordifolium – Red pincushion protea

7. L. reflexum var. luteum – Yellow rocket pincushion

8. L. erubescens – Orange flame pincushion

9. L. reflexum – Rocket pincushion

10. L. vestitum – Silky-haired pincushion

11. L. oleifolium – Tufted pincushion

12. L. conocarpodendron – Green tree pincushion

Pink Watsonia borbonica is stunningly arrayed on the hillside.

As is Melianthus major, or honeybush, which has become a popular garden plant in California and the Pacific Northwest.

I arrive at the Silvertree Restaurant to find a little birthday party being held for one of our tour members. What fun: face paint and traditional music and drums – with delicious cupcakes!

After my fellow tour members leave, I head out again into an increasingly hot afternoon. The broad-leaved coral tree (Erythrina latissima) looks fresh as morning….

And the birds are drinking warm nectar from the Cape fuchsia (Phygelius capensis), left, and honeybush, right.

The red root (Wachendorfia thyrsiflora) I saw first in the wetland at Harold Porter National Botanical Gardens a few days ago is attracting its share of pollinators as well.

As a bee photographer, I’m very excited to find a plump Cape carpenter bee (Xylocopa caffra) nectaring on Leucospermum oleifolium.

I wander the grounds for a few hours, then make my way through the flowery borders where typical Cape flora is informally arrayed, like this pretty combination of purple Felicia amelloides and yellow Cineraria saxifraga.

There’s just enough time before I have to depart to visit Kirstenbosch’s wonderful little Conservatory.

Inside are rare plants like this Hoodia parviflora, now used as a (scientifically-proven!) diet supplement.

And this lovely Petalidium coccineum.

Finally, it’s time to call the taxi and head back to my Cape Town hotel. But I’ll take away beautiful memories (and tons of photos) of this gorgeous garden – moments like this lovely vignette, of the beautiful blue Cape hyacinth (Merwilla plumbea) with ‘Mandela’s Gold’ bird-of-paradise…..

….and the magical sight of the afternoon sun shimmering through the pale bracts of the king protea.

Farewell Kirstenbosch. I hope to return one day.

Touring Historic Vergelegen

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Janet

It’s the 11th day of our South African garden tour and we head out from Cape Town to a historic wine estate that is located not in the traditional South African wine regions of Stellenbosch or Franschhoek, but in the valley below the Hottentots Holland mountains just 6 kilometres from the shores of False Bay. Yes, we’re going to visit Vergelegen.

If you try to say what I’ve just written – and you’re not Dutch or Afrikaans – I guarantee, you’ll mangle it a little, for the soft g is a “fricative” in linguistics and you should say it (according to Wiki), by making a sound as if you were gargling. So, with that in mind, try gargling “Vair-hech-lech-en” – which is Dutch for “remotely situated”. Indeed this lovely estate would have been a 3-day ox-wagon journey from the Cape Colony when it was founded in 1700 by Willem Adriaan van der Stel, who succeeded his father Simon van der Stel as second governor of the Cape. In doing so, he claimed a 30,000 hectare (74,000 acre) allotment and spent the next six years planting half-a-million grape vines (blue and white muscadels, “steendruif” or chenin blanc, and frontignan), camphor and English oak trees, fruit orchards and orange groves, while developing cattle and sheep pasturage and reservoirs and irrigation canals. His interest in horticulture saw him publish one of the first gardening almanacs in South Africa, and he sent native Cape aloes to the Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam.

But Willem van der Stel’s luxurious tastes and autocratic manner saw him recalled from the Cape Colony by the Dutch government in 1707 and made to answer unfair competition charges levelled by the free burghers (independent Colonial farmers) who claimed he had restricted the sale of their produce and curtailed their free rights to fishing while carrying on extensive farming operations at Vergelegen at the expense of the profits (and using the head gardener and slaves) of the Dutch East India Company (VOC or Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie). After van der Stel’s recall, the Dutch overseers of the VOC determined that none of its employees could own land in the Cape Colony, and Vergelegen was divided into four farms. The early garden plan of Vergelegen, below, showing the octagonal walled garden and homestead that still exist on the property was included in the appendices of Contra Deductie, a 320-page document published in Holland in 1712 which details the case against van der Stel. The drawing is copied in the notes to an 1882 publication titled Chronicles of Cape Commanders: Or, An Abstract of Original Manuscripts in the Archives of the Cape Colony by Canadian-born historian George McCall Theal, who emigrated to South Africa as a young man.

Amazingly, that Cape Dutch homestead built by Willem van der Stel in 1700 is still here today, though it was ordered demolished (because it had been built with “ostentation and pomp”) when Vergelegen was partitioned into four separate properties in 1709. Despite part of that order being fulfilled, Vergelegen’s new owner Barend Guildenhuys could not bear to tear the entire house down, removing only the back portion. What is left today (with front gables added on around 1780 and various other additions coming later) is a lovely heritage building that has been part of Vergelegen through numerous owners since its founding. The estate gardens were dilapidated when Vergelegen was purchased in 1917 by mining “randlord” (that’s the South African version of a robber baron) Sir Lionel Philips as a gift to his wife Lady Florence (1863-1940). She worked on the gardens for more than twenty years, turning the walled octagonal garden into a beautiful English garden that has been restored by the current owners, the Anglo American Company, which acquired Vergelegen in 1987. Founded in 1917 by Ernest Oppenheimer, Anglo American now holds an 85% interest in de Beers Diamonds, as well as numerous other large mining interests throughout Africa and the world.

But those five massive camphor trees overhanging the homestead cottage in the photo above, and in the one below, were planted around 1700 by Willem van der Stel..They were declared national monuments in 1942.

Speaking of monumental trees, this English oak (Quercus robur) was also planted around 1700 by Willem van der Stel, and has survived with its hollowed-out trunk to be the oldest oak in South Africa.

A closer look at the homestead with its pretty windows and gables. The traditional thatched roof is fashioned from grasses of the family Restionaceae.

It was Lady Florence Philips who acquired the pair of bronze deer flanking the homestead’s door. They are replicas of the deer found in the ashes of the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum, buried by Vesuvius.

Before I learn that no photos are permitted in the house, I have…… whoops… taken a few photos in the house. (Sorry, Vergelegen). But if I hadn’t done so, I would not have had a chance to explain to you what occurred in the lovely dining room below on April 29^th 1990, a fact of Vergelegen’s history that impressed me more than anything else. For it was here, privately, quietly and under the aegis of Anglo-American, that members of the ANC – men such as Nelson Mandela, Cyril Ramaphosa, Thabo Mbeki, Aziz Pahad and Trevor Manuel (some of whom had just returned from exile in Zambia the previous day) – had their preparatory meeting to negotiate their ascendant party’s terms with President F.W.de Klerk and his government. What a thrilling day that must have been, and what a moment in history for this Cape Dutch house, whose farms, vineyards and pleasure gardens were once worked by slaves in the pay of the Dutch East India Company.

Here’s a lovely arrangement of indigenous flowers in the house. Of Vergelegen’s 3000 hectares (7413 acres), much is taken up by wilderness, and Anglo American has hired an ecological conservationist to help restore the indigenous fynbos, with the goal of enhancing and preserving 2240 hectares (5535 acres) to be a “pristine example of the Cape’s natural flora and fauna”. In particular, our guide tells us, they are removing the blue gums (Eucalyptus globulus complex) and stone pines (Pinus pinea) to relieve the demands those invasive exotic trees place on Vergelegen’s water table.

This is the rear of the homestead, with its quiet reflection pools.

We are given a walking tour of the many new garden areas. This is the herb garden with its masses of scented lavender and other traditional herbs.

I love the sundial in the midst of all these straight-edged parterres.

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I always keep my eye open for life in the garden, like this cape honey bee (Apis mellifera capensis) nectaring on the Limonium prezii, and birds too, like this white-bellied sunbird (Cinnyris talatala)sipping from the Leonitis leonurus or “dagga” as it’s known in S. Africa.

Here is is the new oak arboretum, with fifteen Quercus varieties planted and more to come – all part of a quest to play a part in conservation of oak species suited for the mild South African climate.

We don’t have time to get up into all the vineyards but the grapes aren’t in season yet, since it’s just mid-spring. It’s lovely, however, to see the flowers that will yield the succulent fruit in a few months.

Having completed the grand garden tour, here we are appropriately in the wine tasting room, below. Isn’t it beautiful?

I must say, the South African wine tasting experience is rather elegant, compared to Canada, but it’s exactly what you’d expect from a vineyard designed carefully by Anglo-American to match the ambiance of the entire estate.

A little background first. In the mid-1880s, phylloxera ravaged the vines of the Cape vineyards, as it had done earlier in France, the result of importation of American vines (the phylloxera aphid is native to North America) by English botanists. It devastated Vergelegen’s vines, which were ultimately removed and the land left fallow. It wasn’t until after 1966, under the ownership of the Barlow family, that grapes were planted again on the estate in a small-scale way. When Anglo-American acquired Vergelegen, they cleared invasive vegetation and worked to rehabilitate the land before replanting vines. Their new multi-level, sunken hilltop winery was built and opened by Baron Eric de Rothschild of Château Lafite in Bordeaux, and their wines and the vineyard itself have won top honours in international tasting and tourism competitions. And to add to the vineyard’s cachet, Vergelegen regularly features entertainers like Celine Dion, Josh Groban and Elton John to perform on the estate. And the wine? It’s delicious.

I love these lights in the tasting room. Note the octagonal V logo, a motif borrowed from the octagonal garden dating back to the Willem van der Stel days.

Finally, we sit down to enjoy a lovely lunch at Stables Restaurant. With its beautiful decor, it’s fun to gaze around while waiting for the food to arrive…..

….especially since the walls are graced with beautiful textile art by indigenous artists depicting some of the unique plants of the Cape, like this…..

… and this….

…and this.

And on that charming floral note, it’s time to head back to the bus and settle in for the short trip to Franschhoek and a very quirky and artful private garden whose owner is opening his gate especially for us. See you there!

Janet Davis Explores Colour

In the garden & the world

Tag Archives: South Africa

One Steppe at a Time

Singing Malaika in the Serengeti

Los Angeles County Arboretum in January

A Visit to Kirstenbosch

Touring Historic Vergelegen

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