Phil Hall

Spring at our Magaliesburg accommodation is slightly extraordinary! For one thing – it doesn’t regard dates. That’s right – 1 September is official Springtime Day in South Africa, but the willows next to our stream have already had leaves for a fortnight and peach blossoms have come and gone! That doesn’t mean we didn’t have a hard winter – we did. The frost was strong from May and a recent black chill in August messed up quite a number of plants that then had to be shortened right back or removed totally. But on the certain side, the dawn temperatures have been above zero for whole of August and the lawn that we dressed and watered as an experimentation in the early week of August had to be shortened by the 31st because the pasturage was so tall and deep. This morning I saw a dormouse pulling out grass and eating the roots that were watered yesterday. Hardly a few metres away, a duet of orioles was pecking at the grass. Hopefully they were finding insects and not menacing the grass. I tried to tell myself they were nature’s way of scarifying the lawn for new growing, but I don’t feel too convinced. Since early August we have watered the gardens using stream water ample in natural nutrients and this has paid off in a host of iris and magnolia buds just waiting to break into bloom throughout the next week. That’s if the mousebirds and bulbuls don’t munch them all up first. The birds could do with the buds nutrients to get them into select procreation shape and regard our garden as a handy health bar! The mousebirds descended in a flock just a week ago and demolished hundreds of lush rock roses that had survived the winter and were just passing into flower. The argumentation now is whether or not to entrust the stems to recover or just to drag out and dispose the rest. Ah, the joys of Springtime. After the first thrill of beholding new growth comes the impression that we are about to fight lush growth and the battle to keep our parkland-like Magaliesburg garden from turning into an African jungle! Bring it on!