A Perfumed Sanctuary

As long as her garden is filled with colour and fragrance, Elmari Rautenbach is content!

- Marié Esterhuyse 

With only a few rampant pink climbing roses against a wall, a Camellia japonica in the left-hand corner of the property and a birch tree in the right, Elmari Rautenbach set to work revamping the garden of her Victorian home in Kenilworth.

“There was virtually nothing here when we moved in 20 years ago. The house had stood empty for quite a few months and the shrubs were forlorn, the grass was dead and the rats and bugs were having a field day,” she says.

Elmari enlisted the help of a horticulturist but wasn’t entirely happy with everything he did. “As time went by, I got rid of most of what he planted and followed my own heart. I’m not an expert gardener, but I know what I like: colour and fragrance. Not an all-white garden for me, thanks very much! Over the years, I transformed the garden into what it is today.”