November is the last month of Spring and although we are getting rain, the heat is awful and just before it rains we get awful hot dry winds that roasts susceptible plants. At this time of year, I have to be very careful with my small succulents as the sun's angle shifts and previously shaded spots now get the full glare of midday sun. Most succulent plants evolved to survive drought and grow naturally in the shade of other plants so they die if suddenly exposed. I'm also putting more succulent rockeries together since I cleared all the mess and alien trees out of my yard. It will take a while before I have any shade though and the greenhouse still isn't done, I got sidetracked.
I got my hands on an orange bulbine, these can handle my hot sunny garden and flower all summer. I always wondered about the feathery little flowers and since the other patch started growing madly, I realised that these are specially evolved to be pollinated by leafcutter bees. I spent one hot morning trying to photograph these little guys in action but concluded that my camera isn't up to the task. These little bees collect pollen on the underside of their bodies and there's one lurking here, the only useable shot I got. Honeybees and other bees also visit the bulbine flowers but it's clear that they have a specific relationship with leafcutter bees
The problem now is that's too damn hot to be outside unless early morning or late afternoon. When it comes to alien invader plants, I'm not sentimental as these trees suck all of the water out of the ground and many of them evolved to wage chemical warfare against other plants, preventing anything else from growing nearby. I miss the shade, but I have grown other native trees from seed that are able to survive the sun and heat, and putting in sun-loving indigenous plants. Native plants bring insects to the garden and a huge variety of bees. Honey bees don't visit mesemb flowers much but the little solitary bees love them.
That strange carrot I got a while ago isn't what I was told it is, it's Talinum caffrum and the flowers only open for an hour or so in the late afternoon. It's common for many wild flowers to only open at specific times. Yellow flowers are most visible to bees but flowers that open late in the day only attract the little solitary bees
Many wildflowers here only open for a few hours a day because flowering drains scarce resources and they need to to maximise opportunities for pollination.
This brings me to the ultimate sneaky plants - Anacampseros: I've been eyeing these buds for weeks and it seems the heat finally got them to open. Also only for an hour, in the afternoon. They all have very similar flowers but the leaves are quite varied.
This tray only had one that felt like opening but 4 in one day was a record for me
Some people aim to have something in the garden in flower all year round but it's also possible to have a garden of plants that flower at various times of the day. Just for fun, there are also quite a few that open only at night, like this domino cactus, which you can still catch in the early morning. These are pollinated by moths, hence the white colour.
That's it for this month: a reminder to 
