Plants

Our garden is rich in aloes - more than 50 varieties, succulents and Karoo flora. Many of these have beautiful descriptive common names: 'skilpadkos' (tortoise food), 'volstruistone' (ostrich toes), 'haakdoring' (asparagus aethiopicus which has vicious recurved thorns), 'sosatiebos' (crassula rupestris, which resembles kebabs) and so on. Where possible, these common names have been included on the labels.

We are gradually cataloguing all the Succulents and Aloes on the property and interested parties are most welcome to contact us for further details.

Aloe dichotoma

Aloe claviflora    Kanonalwyn

Aloe dichotoma in flower

The stem is often procumbent, about 1m long and covered with old persistent leaves. New plants may appear along this stem which carries the main rosette at the top.  The broad glaucous leaves are spineless and their colour varies according to area and climate from blue-green to yellow-green, while in the dry karroid hills near Calitzdorp, where they are found in large numbers, they turn a delightful soft pink, edged with red. The inflorescence is a branched and rebranched round panicle with 1 – 3 stems of about 1 m growing from each plant. It occurs on rocky hillsides in the drier areas of the southern and eastern Cape. Flowers July to October.

Information from pages 31 and 32 the South African Wild Flower Guide 2, Outeniqua, Tsitsikamma and Eastern Little Karoo. Drawings and Text by Audrey Moriarty, 1997. Reproduced with Mrs Moriarty’s permission