Fragrance and colour
iIt was love at first sight, says Deirdre Taylor, referring to her garden in the leafy suburb of Irene in Centurion. “We bought the house 15 years ago when the previous owners subdivided a much bigger stand. We loved the area. We left the small 1940s railway house just as it was – it was perfect for my husband and I and our two daughters, Hope, who is currently studying in Cape Town, and Grace, who wrote matric this year. It’s also home to Pebble, our Labrador, and five extremely lazy cats!” says Deirdre.
“There was also an old dark storeroom on the property which Craig dubbed the ‘spider trap’. Shortly after we moved in, he had to work in Australia for a while and it was then that I decided to convert it into a summer house. It’s now a gorgeous entertainment area where we’ve celebrated so many birthdays, Christmas meals and other milestones in our family’s lives! And the canopy of branches provided by the huge white stinkwood above it ensures that it’s always refreshingly cool inside.”
Deirdre developed her garden paradise over a period of 10 years, tackling it ‘room by room’ and giving each one a unique feel and focal point. The only elements remaining from the original garden are some big trees and special plants such as the giant bay tree (Laurus nobilis), two pride-of-India trees (Lagerstroemia indica), an ancient lemon tree, a lemon-scented climbing rose and the original pergola with its rampant Chinese wisteria. New beds were dug out to a depth of half a metre, stone walls and structures were built and the soil revitalised – and only then she was able to start planting flowerbeds, filling them with fragrance, colour and character. The established Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinensis) is one of the delights of Deirdre’s garden, providing an abundance of fragrance and colour in spring. “I’m glad it wasn’t removed – it’s a beautiful focal point,” she says.
Deirdre prunes the climber back hard in summer after its flowering season and threads the new shoots through the pergola during the growing season. In winter it gets a deep watering twice a week; in summer, the rain is sufficient. In late winter, like the rest of the plants, it receives a handful of Atlantic Fertilisers’ Bio Ocean.
Highly scented plants such as Chinese wisteria not only provide fragrance in her garden, but also attract bees, butterflies and birds. Other scented plants in Deirdre’s garden include mock orange (Philadelphus coronarius), yesterday, today and tomorrow (Brunfelsia pauciflora), indigenous forest gardenia (Gardenia thunbergia) and lavender. >>