Practice Makes Perfect

This Constantia Hills garden cleverly combines formal French and wild indigenous styles

- Marianne Alexander

Sheila Boardman is more than just a talented gardener. She has a remarkable eye for perspective and spent hours working on the design of their new garden on the old Soetvlei farm in Constantia Hills.

Additional help came from landscape architect Patrick Watson, who designed the indigenous parts of the garden and oversaw the merging of the wilder elements with the more formal areas. Sheila also has a penchant for formal French gardens and is adept at using allées to lead the eye through the garden and frame the extraordinary vistas.

Different levels and hedging add interest and compartmentalise the garden. For the hedges, Sheila used plumbago, Solanum ‘Deep Purple’, escallonia, Searsia crenata (previously known as Rhus crenata), Freylinia tropica and myrtle.

A simple elliptical lawn with a gravel surround in front of the house initially commands attention. However, the eye is soon drawn to the long main garden, the heart of which is Sheila’s formal ‘fanlight garden’. Clipped myrtle hedges reflect the design of the fanlight window above the front door of their thatched home. After years of working with shady gardens, Sheila finds it exciting gardening with sun-loving plants and has planted a parade of perennials in purples and white with the occasional shocking pink.