The Last Three Gardens [Franschhoek 2011 Open Gardens weekend]

Jackie Loubser's 5 year old garden as seen from the back of the house where a most impressive potager garden has been established.

With 2011 almost at an end and the holiday season right upon us, I really do want to finish showing you the last three gardens we visited during our Franschhoek Open Gardens weekend tour. I am combining them into a single post, since they were all fairly compact in size and all young gardens. Each is evidently much loved by its owner and well thought out and each had its own unique look and feel.

The first garden was really lovely and blew us away with how full the beds were (both in the flower garden at the front of the house and in the extensive vegetable pottager at the back. 

The owners are passionate about their garden and have the most impressive composting system I've ever seen. The husband is an engineer. Generally, engineers are known for their compulsion to have everything precise, well designed to work efficiently and with minimal upkeep or interference. Those steel bins were humming!  

Jackie spoke to us with so much enthusiasm and it was abundantly obvious that she takes her gardening very seriously. Unlike me, she keeps a detailed diary of seasonal plantings and plans her garden intimately. And no, she's not an older gardener who has heaps of time at her disposal. She is a young woman who is determined to learn as much as she can so that she will enjoy many more successes than failures. 

Jackie Loubser is very much "into" companion planting and has made a thorough study of what works best with what. 

This potager garden was the picture of health!

The ducks are an important facet of the health of this garden, too. Their job is to keep slugs and snails down to manageable numbers and their poop is used as fertilizer. 

All of the water features were self built as well and, you guessed it, constructed of steel, thus ensuring that no unwelcome algae would dare deface the clear water. In contrast, the wife, Jackie Loubser, was all about growing things as naturally and organically as possible. Soil health and enhancement using her own homemade compost is her passion. 

I really loved Jackie's garden and her whole ethos towards growing things in a healthy, sustainable way. Jackie was most inspiring and such a warm, animated hostess. It was a treat to have met her!  

Jackie loves attracting wildlife to her garden. She has a whole family of chameleons in residence at present.

The second garden, Mayflower, was very formal, making excellent use of the limited space available and expertly drawing in the view of the surrounding mountains in a most pleasing way.

It rained fairly heavily when we visited this garden...

 Everything was precise and strictly controlled to establish order and harmony.  It was very interesting to see and without doubt, a truly lovely garden. 

While I did admire the very formal layout of Mayflower, this type of garden is not one I would want to emulate. I prefer a far more haphazard approach in my own garden. 

Nothing was out of place in this 3 year old garden!

The narrow back garden...all available space was put to good use in a most pleasing way.

And an even narrower side garden was attractively designed and perfectly maintained.

The third and final garden, Rehoboth, was my least favourite of all the gardens. Not because the owners had not put a lot of thought and planning into the design. It was clear they had and it certainly was pleasant visiting this garden, but I found it quite difficult to take pictures. It just didn't have enough that really held my interest and I have to admit to having had to find my pictures. In gardens such as Fay's and Henk's, although also small, the pictures leapt out at me from all directions. 

The water feature was very pretty and served as the focal point on the top terrace.

View from the top terrace down the length of this 4 year old garden, towards the street.

I liked this built-in stone bench!

This scene appealed to both my eye and that of my camera.

The back garden was neat and compact.

An interesting bench design added some drama to the terraced garden.

A very neat small potager garden filled with herbs and salad veggies.

A pretty pink floribunda creeping rose.

The bees were attracted to the birds' nectar feeder!

And that concludes the Franschhoek 2011 Open Gardens tour. I'd be interested to hear which ones were your favourites, now that you've seen them all.


I plan to do one more short post before I take a three week break from blogging. With the holiday season almost upon us, I intend to spend it making the most of my own garden. I will share some recent pictures of my garden in the very first post I do in the new year.