OPPORTUNITY knocks

When a massive boxelder succumbed to shot hole borer, the owners of this property in Melrose, Jo’burg, took advantage of the additional sunlight to revamp their entrance garden

- CONNALL OOSTERBROEK

It’s always sad when you lose a tree, but when her Acer negundo died as a result of shot hole borer, Melanie Stewart saw it as an opportunity to upgrade the entrance garden.

“The boxelder shaded the whole front garden and nothing would grow there so it had been brick paved. Once all the deadwood had been removed and the sunlight streamed in, it presented a blank canvas,” says Melanie.

An enthusiastic gardener, she did a short landscaping course at Lifestyle College a few years ago. “I learnt enough to know that I needed help to turn my ideas into reality,” she admits. This came in the form of landscape designer Grant Gove, now of Talborne Urban Organics, with whom she established an immediate rapport.

To create the welcoming country-style Melanie wanted, the first step was to remove the old brick paving, which was reused in another project. The trampoline in the centre was relocated to a new space and the old hole filled in with soil from the new one. “We machine compacted this at 30cm layers to ensure that there was no sinkage once the garden was complete,” explains Grant.