A Home Outward Bound

Clearly defined 'rooms', bold drifts of colour and great use of lighting give this garden a modern feel

One of South Africa's renowned horticulturists and garden designers, Arthur Mennigke - aka The Naked Gardener was faced with an established one-acre garden in Bryanston, Johannesburg, which featured a random collection of old-fashioned planting. A space with no structure, no form and nothing to entice anyone into the garden to spend time there. The owners tasked Arthur to come up with something new and exciting with different private areas for relaxed entertaining, increasing the 'livability' of the home.

At the time, Arthur - who was used to teaching students how to divide gardens into usable outdoor rooms - was himself struggling to find a solution to this garden, especially due to the difficult pool shape. While in class, he had a light-bulb moment and suddenly knew exactly how to deal with this space. Now inspired by the unusual pool shape, the design sprang to mind with the planting influenced by the gardens at Great Dixter in East Sussex in the UK - the family home of legendary gardener and gardening writer Christopher Lloyd.

However, this garden is by no means British, rather borrowing from the Dutch in its structured look. Where it does draw on the English garden is the way it draws upon the traditional arts and crafts design motifs, in the heavy use of drifts of colour to create a series of spaces within the landscape. However, it features a less controlled, more natural style of border planting. Drifts and interplanting of grasses underpin and add structure, but will also give late summer and autumn colour as well as form and interest in the winter months. It is a highenergy garden, with its visual impact depending on achieving strong contrasts- of sparkling colour and multifarious shapes offset against each other.