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You could say Carol Gregory has a “Monday Garden”.
Though it’s beautiful through the week, Monday is the only day this busy pastor of the Churchnet 150-strong congregation has free time to indulge in her favourite pastime — gardening.
Until fairly recently Carol, a mother of two daughters and two grandchildren, was involved in ministering to the women of Fort Glamorgan women’s prison too.
Her involvement lasted 11 years. The outreach included weekly pastoring and then aftercare at her home where on occasion she accommodated the women “until they found their feet again”.
Every year, to raise funds for this cause, Carol held an open garden at her home.
Her penchant for gardening began as a young bride on her husband Lawrie’s fourth-generation farm in Molteno — the coldest town in the Eastern Cape, so cold that it is close to the only ski resort in SA — where she set out to revive her mother-in-law’s farm garden.
When the couple moved to East London 28 years ago from the Molteno district, Carol had to acclimatise herself to the difference between gardening where the autumns and winters experienced were teeth-chattering cold, to our warm subtropical climate which demanded attention throughout the seasons.
“Gardening books, magazines, other gardeners and celebrity gardeners were my first source of information.”
Now she looks forward to her monthly Gardening Club meetings where they visit members’ gardens to learn from others and glean new ideas from their gardens to take home.
On first coming to East London, Carol and Lawrie lived in a house in Bird Street, Beacon Bay, which he built with the help of two labourers.
Meanwhile, Lawrie’s work is a business that services farmers in the Eastern Cape and Lesotho under the banner of Charnwood and Steel with light engineering equipment used for their wool-sorting requirements.
Farmers at heart, the couple yearned for the open spaces and quietude of farm life and so decided to buy 50 acres of ground three years ago in Quenera North, East London.
At first gardening wasn’t easy.
“The land was so thick with indigenous trees that the only way we could reach its boundaries was by tractor,” Lawrie said.
They reserved half an acre to build a new house from where they could enjoy the bird, plant and wildlife.
Lawrie encourages buck to visit regularly by feeding them pellets three times a week.
The couple have also discovered by trial and error which garden plants buck don’t eat.
“These include rosemary, red hot pokers, variegated grasses, aloes, strelitzia and arum lilies,” Lawrie said.
He constructed a white picket fence topped by almost invisible electric wires to enclose Carol’s garden, which she describes as of a “partly indigenous country style”.
Included in her colourful planting scheme are dianthus, gauras, lavenders, petunias, diamond frost and agapanthus.
There are some areas where Carol has planted bromeliads but they are not her favourite plant.
Lawrie’s handiwork and woodworking skills are also evident in the archway that introduces a little stone- covered stream which flows from the dam he built.
The garden is watered by an irrigation system which is fed by this dam.
The layout is fairly formal with buxus and Duranta Sheena’s Gold shrub hedges containing each section and outlining large sparkling water features.
The splashing water is the only sound you hear apart from the birdsong from the reeds and other habitats created in and around the dam.
Hedges cut into rounded topiaries present sculptural features of the garden too.
In developing the plot on virgin soil three years ago, the couple kept some thorn trees as a reminder of how it was.
An amusing sight is a hanging basket of pretty fragile flowers suspended from the rugged branches of a thorn tree.
Typical of the garden is the combination of the indigenous wild as a backdrop with pretty traditional style features.
Real Yellowwood trees have been planted at intervals along the drive to the picturesque little cottage where they live.
Unwanted views which remind them that they are in town have been screened off with a planting of 30 viburnum trees.
Benches have been set in strategic spots from where you may enjoy a view of the garden.
Lawrie has also installed a timber deck in front of the living area which offers many hours of peaceful relaxation overlooking the garden and the land beyond.
Roses are an all-important inclusion in the landscaping. These are reminders of the lovely rose-friendly climate they enjoyed in Molteno.
“Roses remain my favourite flowers,” Carol said.
These are mostly floribunda which include South Africa, which was flowering in a profusion of golden yellow blooms when I visited, as well as My Granny and standard Iceberg roses.
The Blue Moon rose, with its pale mauve blooms and classical rose fragrance, was brought from their previous garden and its value is in its promise to bloom from summer through to late autumn.
To maintain her garden through the seasons, Carol incorporates African Dream compost in the soil (available from Lone Oaks in Arum Road, Gonubie), tops up the gaps with new annuals and applies an all-round fertiliser.
Carol also recommends the use of a monthly application of Copper-Count-N, a fungicide which controls many diseases. It is harmless to bees and birds and beneficial to insects, wildlife and pets.
• In the Garden is written by feature writer, garden enthusiast and former teacher Julia Smith, who has returned home to live in Chintsa East. The column aims to inform novice and accomplished gardeners on how to make the most of their green patches
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