Water the flower beds, trim the hedges, prune the plants, and start prepping the al fresco party menu. Deck the tables in vases bursting with blooms, plan a picnic or just spread a blanket beneath a tree. This year’s Friends of Garden Day falls on Sunday, October 9, and invites South Africans to join in celebrating and showing off their glorious, summer-green spaces.
No matter the size or shape of your garden — whether you are surrounded by a humble windowsill of monstera deliciosa or a rambling tree-lined wilderness — everyone can benefit from a walk in the park, in the garden, around the block, through a forest, or next to the plant-filled windowsill.
This year’s “Friends of Garden Day” are an inspiration:
DE KLERK OELOFSE
Blame it on the post-production blues, says actor De Klerk Oelofse, who's addicted to gardening. “The best antidote for feeling down,” he says. “I scarcely knew I had green fingers and never thought I’d work at a nursery and talk like an expert about indigenous plants.
“When you work for weeks on a TV or theatre production, the cast becomes family. When the curtain comes down you return home, the adrenalin rush is over and that’s when the blues hit,” Oelofse says. That’s when he looks at his shadow garden and plans a new look.
Oelofse’s journey with plants gained momentum during lockdown at the indigenous nursery Happy by Nature, close to his home in Tamboerskloof, Cape Town. He spent weeks at home and his head was full of ideas. He visited the nursery to buy potting soil and next thing he knew, he’d offered his services as a volunteer. He hasn't left.
“I love plants — that they just grow. I had carte blanche at the nursery and could let my creative juices flow.”
Gardening began when he moved into a ground floor flat in Tamboerskloof. “A city garden like mine doesn’t always get a lot of sun. I call it my shadow garden and had to figure out what would thrive there.”
He improved his knowledge at the indigenous nursery. “Indigenous plants contribute to the biodiversity in our country and the protection of our own plants,” Oelofse says. “It contributes to conservation.”
NZWISISAI DYIRAKUMUNDA
Those with green fingers know that gardening is beneficial for physical, mental and spiritual wellness. The owner of Akanaka Blooms, Nzwisisai “Nzwi” Dyirakumunda, wasn’t always a believer.
The 39-year-old was born in Gutu, a rural area in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. She was reared by a busy-in-the-garden mother, a small-time chicken farmer always planting vegetables. Even with ties to the soil, she wasn’t convinced. Not yet.
“I am an accidental farmer — it was never in my plans,” says the practising advocate and part-time commissioner at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration. “I was happy to practise law and grow vegetables for my family. Then in 2018, on a quest for personal healing to help with my son’s disability and the loss of two pregnancies, I was drawn to the garden,” she says.
Dyirakumunda took the pain she was carrying and planted herself into her garden. It brought her relief and joy.
Akanaka Blooms was born out of pain, but also hope. Her son Muku has cognitive impairment and other special needs, and she wants her business to represent hope not only for him but for other young adults.
“At Akanaka Blooms, we grow flowers on a five-acre [2ha] agricultural holding in Meyerton, Alberton. I’m intentional about researching and trying to grow the lesser-known varieties in SA in the hope our florists and event planners become interested in them,” says Dyirakumunda, whose favourite flower is the beautiful butterfly ranunculus.
“I joined flower farmers in SA and my friend Flo in Zim, and we started a collective of female flower farmers known as the Hortcouture Flower Collective. We share ideas, resources and flower chit-chat on our WhatsApp group.”
PETA MALAN
Gardening is her safe haven, and when Peta Malan feels the soil on her hands she’s transported to a place where her green fingers do the talking. “This is how I let off steam.”
Malan, who’s been working in the advertising industry for more than eight years as a graphic designer and senior art editor, says her love for gardening began in her childhood on her parents’ farm near Wellington.
“My dad farms with wine grapes and has a vine nursery. I assisted with pressing the grapes, and learnt a lot about plants.” Both her grandfathers were farmers. “I am sure their green-finger genes were passed on to me.”
When lockdown happened, Malan focused her attention on her backyard vegetable garden. She realised she couldn't remember what she'd planted where. That’s how her Backyard Boerdery page on Instagram (@backyardboerdery) came about. “My main aim was to have a separate place where I could keep a record of everything.”
More people started chatting to her and following her page. “People asked more questions and shared ideas.”
Gardening nurtures Malans soul and makes her see life differently. “Everything is temporary — buy the plant if it makes you happy. If it dies, try again. I try to live life the same way.
“If I clear a bed and pick too much of something, I always try to preserve or pickle it. And then the worms in the compost get the last bits and pieces I can’t use.”
Her garden is like a friend; like having a dog, Malan laughs. “But instead of cuddles I get carrots.”
SUSIE HARRIS-LEBLOND
“Mind my flowers,” her mother would shout when she and her sisters invaded the garden. These days, Susie Harris-Leblond feels the same way about her plants.
Harris-Leblond is no lightweight when it comes to gardening. She honed her skills at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in England and as head gardener of two estate gardens.
These days she cultivates flowers on her farm in Constantia called Flourish Urban Flower Farm. When you ask who Harris-Leblond is, you get an earful: “A passionate gardener, creative, an artist, photographer, garden designer and horticulturist.”
She lived in England for nine years and was in her 20s when she studied for two years at the RHS in West London. First she studied the theory of plants, then garden design and later plantsmanship, after which she went to work for the garden designer Nic Howard in Surrey.
Later she was head gardener for two estate gardens in Kent. “The one garden was traditionally English with a specific plant palette — roses, pastures with flowers and big trees. The other garden was more modern.”
Harris-Leblond wants to inspire people to get back to the soil. “I don’t think people value plants enough. Plants are good for your mental health. There’s so much positivity in nature.”
BOSTON GONGWE
If you’d told Boston Gongwe that he’d one day be making beautiful arrangements on a flower farm outside Stellenbosch, he wouldn’t have believed it. Gongwe studied for three years in his home country, Zimbabwe, to become a professional welder and knows a harsh business environment where you sometimes work until sweat runs down your body.
But life takes strange, interesting turns. Gongwe isn’t concerned that his student friends can’t believe he now walks around with his head full of ideas for bouquets at Wendy Atwell’s Jamestown Flower Farm. “I didn’t think I’d work with delicate flowers,” he says.
Gongwe loves using unusual things — grasses, branches, whatever he can find — to make unique arrangements.
He came to SA from Bindura in 2017. “I was looking for greener pastures so that I could support my mother, brothers and sisters who stayed behind.”
But welding jobs were scarce and he found himself with Atwell at Jamestown.
“I studied agriculture in school. I understand when the colour of a flower changes, what nutrients it needs. I know why bees are essential. I know about seedlings, pests and how to work the soil.”
NAZEEMA JACOBS
At Khulisa Streetscapes’ vegetable gardens in the heart of Cape Town, plants and enthusiasm for life are cultivated. Founder of the NGO, Jesse Laitinen, says: “We don’t grow plants, we grow people.”
At Streetscapes’ city gardens Nazeema Jacobs began blooming. With her hands in the soil, she realised that if you nurture plants, you nurture yourself.
Streetscapes is a work-based rehabilitation programme that provides hope to the hopeless and homeless. Laitinen, Finnish by birth, founded it because she believes that homeless people can learn in a resourceful way to have a purpose in life again.
“We grew from 14 to more than 100 people,” says Jacobs. “Thirty-two of us work in the gardens. We sell organic vegetables and eggs.”
The first garden was planted in 2015 in Roeland Street. Now there’s one at Trafalgar High School in Zonnebloem, one in Vredehoek and one on a smallholding in Kuils River.
Jacobs came to Streetscapes seven years ago — a buttons (Mandrax) smoker with a short fuse. Initially hopeless and broken, she now grows seedlings, knows when the soil is ready for planting and can tell you when to sow and harvest vegetables.
It’s two years since she touched drugs, but Jacobs isn’t denying her past. “I’ve been an addict for 15 years. In that time I had a short fuse, was involved with the gangs, sold drugs and worked as a prostitute.”
Gardening was her saving grace and she clings to it. “When I see street people arriving at Streetscapes and starting to garden, I see myself. I try to motivate them. Long ago somebody asked me how I see myself. My answer was: ‘As a flower whose petals keep on dropping.’ Nowadays I see myself as a flower that keeps on growing, even though a petal might still drop sometimes.”
GERONIMO DE KLERK
Geronimo de Klerk and his elder brother Valentino founded the Feed the Future For Life organisation shortly before level 5 lockdown was announced. The organisation helps people in and around Elsies River establish gardens in their backyards. They’ve created five community gardens and helped 22 others to get going. The duo also helps enthusiastic new gardeners with equipment to maintain their gardens.
Valentino and Geronimo have also produced their own documentary, Garden Boyz, released last year — their way of telling young people that gardening is cool. “Elsies is not only about gangs and violence — there are messages of hope here.”
They specifically work with young people. “The people around here suffer. There’s no work and the morale is low.” They were tired of the drug abuse that has young people in its grip. “It’s a cycle that must be broken. We begin with youngsters, teaching them, sharpening their skills to keep them off the streets.”
Trinity Place flats, where the first vegetable garden was established, was controlled by gangs, says Geronimo. It was a place where evil plans were hatched and where gangsters hid when they had instructions to “get rid of enemies”. But the brothers were fearless and erected some fencing. “The gangs realised that we cultivate food and have the support of the community. They stayed away.”
Gardening is now taking place at schools in Elsies River. “As a child I never learnt gardening skills. Now we teach children about the importance of producing food themselves, about food security and how it can be sustainable. About 50% of our food comes from the Western Cape.”
Geronimo and his team help the aged to plant gardens too, teaching them how to look after their plants and to harvest the crops.
SIYABONGA STENGANA
In the middle of the pandemic, Siyabonga Stengana lost his job. “I’d run golf clinics, teaching children to play golf,” he says.
An orphan from the age of five, he wanted to do something good in Mbekweni, the township between Wellington and Paarl where he lives.
Since 2020, he and friend Musa Mbobosi have cleaned 40 illegal dumping sites in Mbekweni and turned them into recreational areas where people can have fun.
“We walked door to door asking for help with equipment, paint and so on. We picked up the litter and used wheelbarrows to take it to drop-off sites. Some of it could be recycled. The green waste was converted into compost for our plants. When the community realised what we were doing, volunteers offered their services.
“Somebody with a tyre shop in the area donated tyres, others donated paint. The youngsters paint the pavement stones, and we plant some greenery to make it look better. We’ve also planted some trees which we saved from neglected areas.”
He continuously spurs himself on with the cleanup and renewal of parts of his township.
Stengana recently opened a roller-skating academy and dreams of being on the golf course again, coaching youngsters.
