Land Of Plenty

A property in the heart of the Constantia Winelands has been given new life as an abundant food garden, thanks to the inspired vision of its owners

- Heidi Bertish

The genesis of this vegetable garden was a very clear brief: To create a food garden and entertainment pavilion for long, lazy lunches with family and friends. A collaboration between garden designer Franchesca Watson and architecture firm Malherbe Rust resulted in a vegetable, herb and flower garden with strong architectural lines, just glamorous enough not to detract from the rural comfort that is at its heart. The pavilion, too – conceptualized as a glass cube – sets up just the right amount of tension between pastoral harmony and 21st-century living.

‘We visually anchored the glass pavilion by placing a lily pond on either side of it,’ says Franchesca. The rill was painted in a chalky white as a nod to the traditional Dutch farming irrigation practices of the area and positioned centrally as a device to draw the eye through the garden and up towards the sweeping, 360-degree views of the surrounding Constantiaberg mountains. ‘The rill was built so as to appear infinite, with the pond into which it flows tucked away at the base of a low retaining wall. This clever addition disguises a tricky level change and visually separates the garden from the nearby driveway.’

A water channel with custom-designed fountains bisects the garden and creates a visual axis from the homestead down one of the main pathways, connecting it to the newly created vegetable garden. Plant supports in the form of ‘latte’ planting frames; pathways defined by ‘klompie’ brick edging; raised planters for herbs, edible nasturtium, and pelargonium flowers; and established guava and almond trees all add a three-dimensional quality to the garden.