My crew and I have worked relentlessly throughout the winter months grooming and sprucing and now look forward to the harvest of joy that comes with the growing season.

We have planted almost twenty brand new landscapes of various sizes. We got stuck in at our maturing flagship gardens creating new layouts and re-planting where necessary. It has been a bumper year of gardening and landscaping especially with this warmer and drier winter. It is going to be wonderful watching all these young gardens bursting into life in the coming months of spring.

Gardens inspired by the delicate pallet of the Cape’s flora have become a specialty of mine and one that I love being tasked with.

Mostly these natural gardens have a much larger bed area than the traditional garden. The spacious bed area allows for larger diversity of plant species which nature has insisted on in our part of the world.

This diversity of plant species is required to attract the wildlife that is a necessary element of the natural garden. You want the birds, bees, lizards and ladybirds in your garden.

Creating an indigenous, natural and beautiful garden requires a diverse palette of succulents, grasses, fine and small leaf shrubs. You will need a seriously good knowledge of indigenous shade plants and most importantly an intimate relationship with trees.

My crew of professionals and artisans are perpetually involved in the laying out of new gardens and the subsequent nurturing of these to maturity. Maintaining beauty, balance and bounty in the garden takes much commitment but the rewards are invaluable.

In the next few articles I will explore my planting palette and share some of our favourite planting combinations.

Horticulturist: Lusanda Tshontshi

For now I wish all gardeners a great growing season filled with abundance and reward.