I held a small bunch of flowers in my hands. I couldn’t believe how incredible they were. So much green for so few colours! Here where the wind seldom relents and the soil cries out for more nutrients, can it really be, that all plants need are light, rain and breathed out carbon by industry and me?

The first Strandveld flower that stopped me in my tracks was the sprawling Indigofera in front of my studio. Seven pinnately arranged leaves decide to drop the 7th leaf for a small purple flower. Another magnificent was James Britannia. He uses 5 orange stripes to divide his petals into five white hearts. I didn’t take too much notice of Phylica ericoides until I saw her winter’s coat of white woolly sepals covering a naked green floret. The last in my bunch was Diosma guthriei. When I crushed its leaves, it smelled of fresh oranges, lemons and naartjies.

This cup of beauty is a mystery to me. Why should it exchange oxygen to me? Why is so much beauty needed for me to breathe?