Romantic getaways Magaliesburg
Spring at Magaliesburg accommodation is reasonably special! For one thing – it doesn’t value dates. That’s right – 1 September is official Spring 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 icing in August messed up quite a number of plants that then had to be trimmed right back or removed absolutely. But on the sure side, the morning temperatures have been over zero for all of August and the lawn that we dressed and watered as an experimentation in the outset week of August had to be shortened by the 31st because the pasture was so tall and dense. This morning I saw a dormouse pulling out grass and eating the roots that were watered yesterday. Merely a few metres away, a twosome of orioles was pecking at the grass. Hopefully they were finding insects and not threatening 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 positive. Since early August we have watered the gardens using stream water full-bodied in natural nutrients and this has paid off in a host of iris and magnolia buds just waiting to erupt into bloom during the next week. That’s if the mousebirds and bulbuls don’t swallow them all up first. The birds require the buds nutrients to get them into prime nurture shape and regard our garden as a handy health bar! The mousebirds descended in a flock just a week ago and razed hundreds of lush rock roses that had survived the iciness and were just going into flower. The argument now is whether or not to entrust the stems to regain or just to pull out and discard the rest. Ah, the joys of Massages. After the first thrill of seeing new development comes the perception 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!