Cape Town - Some people are born to garden, and Annemarie Vorster is one of them. Who else would establish, from scratch, a garden on a steep slope, ravaged by the south-easter, which bakes in the summer sun?
Add to these tough conditions this winter’s continuous and excessive rain, and you know that Vorster must be dedicated to have achieved the mass of colour and variety of indigenous plants in her beautiful Oranjezicht garden.
Most of Vorster’s garden is indigenous, and she has many unusual and some rare plants.
She moved to Cape Town 15 years ago from Joburg, and gardening there is a completely different, as anyone who has lived there knows.
“This garden was horrific,” she says, overgrown with Brazilian Pepper trees and Washington pines. There was very little that was indigenous. The pines were cut down and we started clearing.
“I started with a little bed next to the garage, not realising it had little sun in winter – and everything died that year in the cold and the rain. Even after that I didn’t think indigenous. Some plants fared okay. Many didn’t. And then one day the penny dropped – when in Rome do as the Romans do.”
Indigenous plants, however, have their own specific needs, and the clay soil (Malmesbury shale) needed drainage.
“I bought a pincushion, some good compost, and planted it. It grew a little, then died. It was time to get some books and read.”
Vorster sought help from Kirstenbosch, bought in some sandy soil and organic compost, and battled on. “In those years it wasn’t that simple to grow indigenous plants – you’d be be lucky to get small plants that were nothing more than rooted cuttings. Today you find a variety of well-establish indigenous plants at many nurseries.
“I started hunting, found private growers, and found some rare things.” She travelled around the country to nurseries, seeking out what she wanted.
“I still find unusual plants – it’s what I love to do. Some I get to grow, some not.”
Another problem was the water-borne disease Phytophtora: “When the temperature rises above 18°C and you water, it becomes active and causes root rot. I used to bawl my eyes out when my plants died, but I kept going.”
Vorster’s pincushions (Leucospermums) are magnificent – she has these robust shrubs in many shades, from yellow to reds and combinations of colours, like one with a deep pink centre and orange outer. Many are well established – they live for 15 to 20 years.
“I love pincushions, they give so much for so many months – they stay flowering for four to five months. I tend them carefully, feed them, and every six weeks in the growing season I give them ammonium sulphate and ammonium phosphate (diluted) at the stem of every plant – a trick I learned. I also dead-head them.”
Vorster’s garden is a celebration of colour, with many plants in flower now and the variations of foliage colour. There’s artistry in the way she has organised plants, creating microclimates in different parts of the garden, always having something in flower, winter and summer.
“I seldom plant plants without flowers. I like colour, and don’t really like shade plants,” she says.
Many of her plants self-seed, the unknown factor that makes gardening interesting as you wait to see what emerges.
While many people welcome birds in their garden, Vorster has an ongoing battle with the sugarbirds.
“The small ones don’t damage the flowers, but the big ones – they move in and leave the protea flowers looking like an old toiletbrush! I stand waiting for them to scare them away, but they’re used to me now. The red-wing starlings love the aloes and succulents.
“They find a flower and destroy it. But you’ve just got to live with it,” she says, although she’s not at peace with it!
Most of the garden has full sun, and in summer it’s very hot, along with the southeaster. “It moves through and shreds plants, leaving behind empty stalks.”
As with many avid gardeners, Vorster ran out of space to garden, and started making noises about removing a double garage they were using for storage only. “My husband refused. So I took the roof off the garage, laid a slab, waterproofed it and built a small wall. My son bought me 36 cubic metres of soil, which wasn’t enough, and I had to get another 26 cubic metres.”
The roof garden is a treat, a collection of indigenous succulents and aloes, with different foliage, textures and colours, and expands the garden considerably.
Vorster’s garden is easy to see from the road – and well appreciated.
“People enjoy my garden so much when they walk past, they wave at me. I love to share the garden with people.”
This is a garden to be enjoyed by everyone – from those who know nothing about plants to those who know their leucospermums from their leudcodendrons.
There are far too many plants to mention here, but some that catch the eye are a variegated red and white Erica regia, a Leucospermum oleifolium, a small shrub with flowers that start off yellow, turn orange and then crimson.
Vorster has various Helichrysums, with their grey-silver foliage, a white Aloe ferox (not a hybrid,) and a white King Protea.
Among the succulents there’s Euphorbia caput medusa, low growing, with many arms, each with a head of flowers with white tendrils, and Gaap (Hoodia Gordonia).
My favourite patch is a mixture of deep magenta and blue Babiana bulbs and Lobostemon fruticosus (also known as Agt-dae-geneesbos for its ability to heal all kinds of pain within eight days), an evergreen shrub with flowers in delicate blue. There are also many patches of Geranium incanum and diascias.
Vorster also has a rare cork tree, Mundulea sericea, in the corner of her garden, a small summer flowering tree with wonderful cork bark.
Nearby, starting to flower is the tambotiedoring, a nondescript plant now, but with its first buds about to open, it has the promise of beauty. - Cape Argus