My Little Piece Of Heaven

Jean Campbell says her plants are like her children: the more she gets to know them, the more she discovers what each one needs.

- Marié Esterhuyse

Jean Campbell has always been passionate about gardening.

And wherever she goes, she creates her own small slice of heaven. “My love for gardening was sparked at an early stage of my life. As a town girl who married into a farming family, I was soon drawn into that way of life and over the past 37 years have created many gardens on the various farms we have run. I’ve also experimented quite extensively with what grows best in our local climate,” she says.

Jean and her husband John moved to this farm near Impendle 12 years ago after he was appointed as manager. The garden was developed in the 1960s by the current owner’s mother, Maureen Rowles, who did all the groundwork of removing the veld grass and planting the trees. However, the owners later moved to England and the garden became a bit overgrown. When the Campbells moved in, Jean immediately took on the task of giving the beautiful old garden a new lease on life.

Garden revival

Jean’s first task was to prune back the garden and remove and replace those plants that were struggling.

“We created new beds and converted the original rose bed into a circular vegetable garden. Some of the existing roses were moved to the new beds, and to add additional colour I planted more roses, as well as perennials such as salvias, lavenders, agapanthus and irises.

“Annuals like fairy primulas, snapdragons, delphiniums and pansies provide seasonal colour in-between.”