Ever changing scenes in the garden. 
The focus here is on Aloe vanbalenii in front and
Aloe barberae (tree aloe) to the right just behind the stump. 
The daisies are blooming it is winter - 20007 (that is June-July).





June 2010 and the rain season  started at least 2 months 
ago.  The aloes are washed shiny clean from the summer's 
dust.  

Interesting how the one Aloe vanbalenii plant grew way 
faster than the two on the side and Aloe barberae the 
tree aloe in the middle, more than doubled in size.  
The smaller type aloes in the background are not in the
picture any more, they have reached their maximum size
long ago. 

Special about Aloe vanbalenii is the color changing in
the leaves when it is grown "hard". That is a lot of summer 
sun and very little water.



Special about Aloe barbarae -  it is a tree. 

Euphorbia species
It is extraordinary how many Euphorbia there are and how much 
they differ from each other.  The only way to know they are related 
is by the  flowers.

Here is a photo of the tiny ground cover.  The leaves are very small  
in dry weather and  much larger(in  comparison) in easy conditions.  
I added my finger tip for scale.

   

It was only recently that I found out that this old favorite ground 
cover  was in fact an Euphorbia!

Never forget that the milky sap or latex of  the Euphorbia plant
is highly toxic.  Especially in the eyes.  There is one very fierce 
large tree size Euphorbia in the northern parts of South Africa 
where it is dangerous  in habitat where those large plants grow
to walk downwind when they are in bloom.  Your eyes will start 
burning and you better cover the eyes and nose with a  piece of 
cloth quickly.  
Surprisingly the bees and butterflies love the flowers !
   
   

   
There are animals - even domestic cattle - that eat some of the 
Euphorbia species.  This is life saving for the animals in 
Namaqualand and the Karoo.   
I would like an assortment Euphorbia  between the aloe 
plants but most of the pretty or odd ones are rather difficult 
plants out of their habitat.

Orange slime for Gisela.
If you have some info on this then we can add it here. 
Let me know if you want the larger photos and I will email it to you.
I saw it only once - early morning.  By midday the
bubbles have all "melted" into a thin  layer of orange liquid.
If I had a scientific mind I would not have picked it up
but I wanted to have a closer look and did not realize it was so very
fragile.



To give some idea of size.  The snail was not bigger than my thumbnail.
The green leaves are from a very small (weed) groundcover of  the Euphorbia family.
I like that ground cover even if it is seen as a weed. 
It is too small to overgrow  my aloes and it is drought resistant.
There was no sign that the slime damaged the plant in any way.

Ever changing scenes in the garden. 
After I took the photo I realized how much the scene changed.
Seeing it every day it seems to be the same.

The aloes are Aloe gerstneri in front and you need to look close to
see Aloe speciosa behind.

Photo above was taken January 2007
Photo below was taken January 2010

Aloe gerstneri blooms in summer and Aloe speciosa in winter.


The photo bellow is to show Aloe speciosa in bloom,  winter July
2009.  The angle of this photo is slightly different. There are
still two Aloe gerstneri  plants,  the second one is behind the
first one.  The toppled plum tree can be seen in the background 
with only a few yellow leaves on it.
The winter growing mesemb on the left is now bright
green.



Photo below of Aloe speciosa  was taken 1Aug. 2010.  
In fact I went and took this photo a few minutes ago.

Those flower racemes are at least 50 cm high and there
are three!
Below:-  Aloe speciosa from the side showing  the tilted
rosette facing north which is the rule for this aloe species.