Andre`s Olea europea var africana, African landscape.

Dear Friends

This Landscape won a year long  Progression Photo competition under the category " African Landscape Penjing " that was held in Africa ( I can say Africa, because Neli also won a price and she s from Zambia!.  So I, my Darlings,  am a Continent Conqueror.   hihhi hihi ihih iii i

In the Landscape I used 39 trees that was grown from seed.  All but one tree are all the same age, about 6 years old.  There are 11 miniature orchids ( 3 different species) 4 types of miniature ferns, miniature papyrus and some crassulas echiverias and mosses.

I constructed the Water Tray in art classes which I attend on wednesdays, (just to do something esle than plants)   But Im gonna re do it as I am not happy with the white cement which I thought was an epiphany, but wasnt....it looks like a plaster cast of some hideous flattened coffin.

Some of the trees and some of the rocks I was planning to use..  The main rock is full of holes, which I used for the water feature.  At the back I attached a hose pipe and cemented it in, as not to see it, it is then connected to a pump.


Placing the rocks in the tray.  This took 3 days,  as every morning there seemed to be a continental drift and everything was in a heap, and not anything near a landscape.  It seemed that I couldnt find the inner strength of the stones,  as to balance them, so that they did not look so precarious.  ( I learned this new word ever since Precarious joint the IBC, not only do we learn about bonsai here, but one can learn English as wel.)



a Precariously top View...



And Voila...African landscape predicting the "Oorlogskloof Nature Reserve" with only Olives







With morning mist.....  which is actually smoke from a joint...and after the pictures was taken, a whole cake was consumed.  hi hihi hihii hihi ihiiihi joke!



Its almost ready for an update, but will hold on a little while and bask in the sun of delight.

Love and Light

Love it and congrats!!

Andre Beaurain wrote: With morning mist.....  which is actually smoke from a joint...and after the pictures was taken, a whole cake was consumed.  hi hihi hihii hihi ihiiihi joke!  



Love and Light

the "mist" makes it look like the lost island of king kong
beautiful composition !

so you were joking about eating a whole cake, right ?  
but probably half a cake though...

Love and Light One Up

the "mist" makes it look like the lost island of king kong
beautiful composition !
[/quote]

Funny, one of the rocks on the left looks like King Kong, do you see it? The number of plants and amount of detail work come precariously close to boggling the mind! Have an approximate on the number of hours spent creating and maintaining t/o the year?

Precarious wrote:Funny, one of the rocks on the left looks like King Kong, do you see it?  

hhhmmm... no... no i dont...

hang on a second

puff puff puff
coff coff coff



yeah !
there it is !
i see it now !!!



having so much fun with andre's work and there he is on the other side of the world sleeping through it

hihih hihih hihi hihihi ihhihi ihiiiii

Funny, Thanks again guys....Kevin Leo and Milly for your Love.

There are now a wolf spider take took hold of the Island. With all her babies... this is the last time the Island got weeded.....

Love and Light

'There are now a wolf spider take took hold of the Island. With all her babies... this is the last time the Island got weeded.....'

Show us please!!

Man, this is nice!!!!

Makes me want to start playing with concrete myself. I swore off concrete when I retired from the concrete chemicals industry. I was in the chemical manufacturing end of it, so I don't have much hands on with actually using concrete, but boy can I go on about its chemistry.

If it wasn't so cold outside right now I would be tempted to start a project today. Somewhere I have a pump and a mini-fog generator. I really need to just do it.

What species of orchids do you have in there? Of course I would ask this, and how are they doing?

Leo Schordje wrote:Somewhere I have a mini-fog generator.

me too



and ditto what milly said !!!

lets see the wolfman spider, man !!!

Beautiful, dear André!

Andre Beaurain wrote:... ...But Im gonna re do it as I am not happy with the white cement which I thought was an epiphany, but wasnt....it looks like a plaster cast of some hideous flattened coffin... ...

Easily solved! Next time you should mix to the dry cement some artist powder color whichever shade matches the best.

Andre

Congrats on the two prizes you won in the competition! I must say I feel that we all lost out a bit in this part of the world when the SA forum shut down.

But on to happier things: this composition of yours makes me think of some hiking I did with family at Christmas a few years ago in the Baviaanskloof, up river beds and kloofs and ravines. If the Oorlogskloof is even a fraction as beautiful as you've made it out to be, I'll have to add it to my list!

Cheers,
John

WoW that's beautifully done Andre. Love the smoke from that thunderous waterfall. Reminds me of the Laeveld

Hi guys

Thanks my Darling friends for your time..

Milly I tried to look for the spider....but I cant find it, the babies hatched and shedded their first skins.  



Dear Leo

The Orchids are:  Dockrillia linguiformis:  Right at the top of the mountain.
                        Pleurothallis sonderiana... Everywhere, representing the bulbs of the Oorlogskloof Nature Reserve. (Its the Riches in bulbs per sqaure m in the World!)
                        Diaphananthe millarii......the photo at the bottom



Pleurothallis sonderiana



Thanks Alaxandre for the tip.  
Kevin I will look out for the spider and snap it for you and Milly.  Are you into spiders ?

Dear John
If you are into nature and hiking,  this one you cannot miss.  The biggest Kept secret.  You get a permit online ( Or per Telephone) at Cape Nature.  Somebody drops of the Key for the Nature Reserve at a Cafe in Nieuwoudville. (Very small town on the Bokkeveld Plateau)
When you unlock the gates, you lock them behind you, and then you and Nature are alone for the weekend.  Its beyond awesome.  They discovered the newest Clivia there recently!  I also discovered a plant there that will bare my name one day, but thats another story, for another day.
You must watch out for leopards though.  But entering a gorge in the Escarpment where there is a Leopard, you will soon feel it.  Its eery and still, no birds, a few Baboon skeletons, a slit in the rock.....  Then you turn around slowly and and walk away.....

Thanks Fredman,  are you an emigrant?

Love and Light
Andre

Thank you Andre. Spiders fascinate me but from a distance

Yep I am Andre. Didn't flee just left Miss the Acacias terribly

Andre Beaurain wrote:
Kevin I will look out for the spider and snap it for you and Milly.  Are you into spiders ?

not spiders in particular, just interesting life of all sorts...

but that interest has also led to a few close calls in my travels...
everything from picking up a both a red-back spider AND a blue-ring octopus in australia (separate incidents, both unintentional)
and having a full grown buffalo head in the side door of my minivan at yellowstone... again unintentional, but still...
(man, i'm glad he backed out without catching a horn in the door frame, otherwise i think he would have tried to go forward )

but i digress...

Dang, don't go Steve Irwin on us!

well the big difference there is that he knew what the hell he was doing...
while me on the other hand, not so much