An Abiding Passion

Nan Steyn’s life revolves around roses. She tells us about her love for the queen of flowers and shares advice on how to get the best from these plants.

- Marie Esterhuyse

Somewhat romantic, joyful, soft and tranquil. That’s how Nan Steyn describes her abundant rose garden in the beautiful town of Swellendam.

Nan is a rose enthusiast, through and through. Although she also grows other shrubs and perennials, they often have to make way for more roses, she says. Nan designed her garden herself and hasn’t changed much of its basic structure over the past 11 years – but she has planted many new roses.

“We previously lived on a smallholding in the Hermitage Valley just outside town. That was really the land of milk and honey as far as roses are concerned! The soil there was slightly clayey and rocky – just what roses need to thrive. I had hundreds of roses! Eleven years ago, we moved into town and I started my garden from scratch. We bought an empty property, so there was no garden at all. Just wonderful loamy soil and enough space for plenty of my favourite flowers,” she says.

One step at a time

Nan drew up a plan for her garden, keeping roses as her top priority, and then tackled it one section at a time. In the front garden, she grouped the roses more or less according to colours. She prefers to plant lots of the same type of rose together, with companion plants in the same colour. This creates a fluid colour effect.

In her back garden, she planted roses such as ‘Rina Hugo’, ‘Duet’, ‘Garden Queen’, ‘Tineke’ and ‘Red ’n Fragrant’, which all bear gorgeous cut roses for her home. “In that section I wasn’t so strict about colour groupings. I planted a wide variety of roses that are all excellent cut flowers because I simply cannot be without flowers – particularly roses – in my home.”