Leisure Bay Conservancy Open Gardens: Pondoland specials find a home in this garden

DON’T expect petunias when you visit the Leisure Bay garden created by Piet and Stephanie Breedt, one of four that will go on show during the Leisure Bay Conservancy open garden weekend, June 16 and 17.

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The Breedts are passionate about KwaZulu-Natal’s natural flora and their indigenous garden has been created as a showcase for our wealth of beautiful, naturally-occurring plants. Although it lacks the rainbow beds of bright annuals that many conventional gardens boast, it certainly doesn’t lack colour, particularly in winter when the many aloes and succulent plants come into bloom.

However, colours in a typical wildlife-friendly garden like this one tend to be more muted and indigenous gardeners like the Breedts follow nature’s example. They place more emphasis on texture, interesting form plants, a natural-looking garden layout and the wide range of greens and greys of our indigenous foliage.

This intriguing garden – together with another of the open garden weekend show gardens, belonging to Libby and Mick Goodall – went on show about a decade ago during a previous open gardens fund-raiser.

The Breedts’ garden, started completely from scratch, had only just been established. Still in its infancy it was then quite a stunner but now it has come of age it is really impressive.

When they took over the property, at 1311 Fisherman’s Road, Stephanie and Piet retained the two small clumps of indigenous trees and augmented these thickets by planting a number of other interesting tree species.

The trees, which have grown amazingly over the years, are the garden’s foundations around which the pathways, beds and other features have been placed. This has made for a very pleasing, natural effect.

The garden is an invitingly cool, green space, its tranquillity enhanced by a number of ponds and bird baths. Adding to this effect is the fact that this green space has been cleverly planned to merge almost seamlessly with all the natural beauty surrounding the property.

Other interesting features of this wildlife-friendly garden are some fascinating plants that highlight the Breedts’ interest in and knowledge of botany and the local flora. Leisure Bay falls within a world-renowned botanical hot spot known as the Pondoland Centre of Endemism. The centre boasts many fascinating plants unique to the area, that don’t naturally occur in any other part of the world.

Stephanie and Piet are fascinated by these Pondoland ‘specials’ and have acquired a number of them as garden subjects. Of particular interest is their endemic Pondoland shrub, Raspalia trigyna. Once thought to be extinct, its discovery caused great excitement about a decade ago and it is now being cultivated to be reintroduced to the wild.

The Breedts planted their Raspalia trigyna soon after their garden was started. Happily the sapling took a liking to its new home and is now a thriving mature shrub. If you are interested in our local flora you should make a point of seeing this garden during the garden show. Ask Stephanie or Piet to point the Pondoland specials out to you.

Four fascinating Leisure Bay indigenous gardens will go on show during the indigenous gardening weekend and will be open to the public on both days from from 10am to 4pm.

The others are Plumbago at 546 St Ives Avenue, ‘Kalimera’ at 1043 Fisherman’s Drive and the garden at 1668 Seaton Avenue. They will be well sign-posted from the main road.

Tickets, at R30 to see all the gardens, will be available at the garden entrances and from selected local outlets, members of the Leisure Bay Conservancy and the participating gardeners. All profits go to the Leisure Bay Conservancy.

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