My Garden in Salisbury, Rhodesia
Created | Updated Sep 2, 2009
I have always found that the most difficult part of any task is getting started.
This applies to practically everything I do - except perhaps gardening.
This could mean, I suppose that it is because I absolutely love gardening. I would rather garden than do anything else. Except maybe under the blazing African sun. When I gardened in Central Africa, I had to go out under a large hat - which got in the way - and as we had a garden which was sited on a quite precipitous slope, if I had forgotten something it was quite tiring to climb back. I had to think well in advance, and take my gardening gloves, a pair of secateurs, and of course the ubiquitous huge shady hat.
When I was married for the second time I inherited, not only a very errant husband, but also two children and an acre of wild sloping veld. The plot had magnificent indigenous Msasa trees on it. Curiously these beautiful Msasas have reversed the seasons. When their new leaves come out in spring they range in colour from the palest pink to the most beautiful mahogany colours. The sight of a forest of Msasa - forest is a manner of speaking because they do not grow close to one another. The impact of their autumnal colours is breathtaking. I seem to remember that these shades last for about a month before the lovely autumn colours take on their summer finery of palest green to a good deep green colour.
On reflection I wonder if the reason for the trees starting off in their autumn colours might be because of the rainy season. I also wonder if they are the only trees that come out the 'wrong' colour in spring?
In Rhodesia, now of course known as Zimbabwe, there is a very definite rainy season. Each season lasts approximately six months. This means that from about November to April, the "official" rainy season, rain can either be excessively heavy initially, and then become more gentle. Or indeed, in drought years there is hardly any rain at all. The six dry months are from May to October, The "dry" season starts in the most halcyon fashion and as one advances towards October, officially known as "suicide" month, the heat becomes increasingly unbearable. The joy of Salisbury/Harare is that it is fairly high 5,000 feet, and so the nights are always cool. It really is quite unbearable in the lowveld.
The veld is parched and not a drop of rain falls. Crickets chirp, the earth appears to suffer and literally cry out to have the conditions of drought removed.
When November eventually arrives, the parched, baking earth appears to want to gulp down the huge raindrops which come bucketing down from the heaves. Needless to say, they come not "as the gentle rain from heaven" but avalanche down in great big sheets of water with raindrops as large as grapes. Generally, the advent of the rain is heralded by enormous shards of forked lightning and claps of the most deafening thunder. I soon learnt that, with a young family I had to be brave and not scuttle under the bed as I used to do in Johannesburg.
In parenthesis I might add that every year there were people killed by lightning. In fact the husband of a friend of mine was killed whilst walking with his daughter and her friend. He was running across the field and holding his daughter by the hand on one side and her friend on the other. Sadly, lightning struck and killed him stone dead whilst the two girls looked on helplessly. The reason for this was that he was taller than either of the girls.
My other strong memory of my spring garden, Dan Close, is of the overwhelming smell of wet tobacco dust. Some early settler had realised that if one cut the grass, watered and forked/spiked the area, then mulched the whole area with tobacco dust which one had begged from a farmer friend, and then gave it a final soaking, the result, literally in days, would be the most wonderful green lawn. So very soothing to the spirit, before the rains came.
And of course there was my bird table next to a cypress tree. I used to buy 100 lbs of munga every month and keep myriads of tiny blue birds and also red birds happy. We also had some very lovely yellow and black feathered bird that came as well.
One day I looked out the sitting room window as there was a very curious noise in the cypress, It turned out to be a crow who was busily climbing up the inside of the tree.
But the story of Cuthbert is another tale.
Lovely days. Such happy days.
