Johannesburg - This is a glorious time of the year to be in the garden. It is also the open garden season and top gardens are opened to raise money for charity.
A highlight of the charity open garden season is the opening of the Beechwood Gardens in Hyde Park for four days from Thursday October 31 and November 3).
Set on 1.2ha in Hyde Park, the gardens were laid out in 1949 by Joane Pim, the Joburg landscaper who also designed the Brenthurst Gardens. Thirteen years ago, Beechwood was bought by jeweller Christopher Greig and his wife Susan.
“Beechwood’s garden is the result of one man’s passion for plants,” writes Keith Kirsten in his book, Gardens that Inspire, which was launched in the Beechwood Gardens last week. “Chris is a vegetarian and Susan is an accomplished cook, so it comes as no surprise that the garden includes a magnificent vegetable garden,” he adds. “He loves working in the kitchen garden and takes great pleasure in growing vegetables from seed to harvest.”
Talking to a group of garden enthusiasts last week, Christopher Greig recalled how top Joburg landscaper Beth Still advised him that the project to restore the Beechwood Gardens would take 10 to 12 years to achieve. It did take that long.
Greig, whose garden has the good fortune to be located on a spectacular underground water source, trenched the entire garden, added mountains of compost and has replanted almost every corner. Today the garden includes superb vistas, attractive sculptures, water features, shade gardens filled with giant March lilies, a food garden and formal rose garden.
Renovating the rose garden, which dated from the 1960s, was one of Greig’s first projects. Doric columns were collected from other parts of the garden, restored and placed to the west of the rose garden to create a colonnade.
Now a sunken garden which lies 2m below the rest of the garden, the rose garden is divided into 12 beds lined with a clipped buxus hedge. Only roses that bloom in pastel shades are to be found in the rose garden and include favourites such as Garden and Home, Spiced Coffee, Brumilda van Rensburg, Greensleeves and Table Mountain. Terracotta pots filled with Johannesburg Garden Club, My Granny and Granny Dearest are positioned around the rose garden.
An avid nature conservationist, Greig says: “I am strongly against using any form of insecticide. Insects are allowed to feed freely on my roses. The birds eat the insects and so the delicate ecological balance in the garden is maintained.” Hawks, moorhens and even a pair of migratory Asian ducks which return to the gardens each year are now residents.
For tree enthusiasts, two 60m water oaks (Quercus nigra) in the driveway planted in a sea of evergreen lawn are a spectacular sight. The beech tree, after which the gardens were named, was removed in May after contracting canker.
The water gardens are on a gentle slope. Bright pink and white water lilies are found on the ponds, with gentle waterfalls surrounded by Louisiana irises and elephant’s ears.
Jane Griffiths, author of food and herb books, describes the Beechwood food garden as one of the most exciting new vegetable gardens she has seen in Joburg. Comprised entirely of raised beds, the food garden is Greig’s latest passion. It has a host of new fig varieties, tomato plants, cabbages, lettuces and herbs which grow at the base of the raised beds.
The full-time gardening manager, Steven Gouveia, has used Beechwood Gardens in a pilot project for his Masters thesis on the effects of reintroducing natural mycorrhiza to a garden. Commercially available as MycoRoot, and available at the open gardens, the natural organic biochemical is added to the soil at planting and allows phosphates to be easily broken down by plants.
* See www.gardensofthegoldencity.co.za. - Saturday Star