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I believe that a really good way to understand a culture is through its gardens.
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This is an extraordinary journey to visit 80 inspiring gardens from all over the world.
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Some are very well known like the Taj Mahal or the Alhambra.
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And I'm also challenging my idea of what a garden actually is.
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So I'm visiting gardens that float on the Amazon,
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a strange fantasy in the jungle,
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as well as the private homes of great designers,
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and the desert flowering in a garden.
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And wherever I go, I shall be meeting people that share my own passion for gardens on my epic quest
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to see the world through 80 of its most fascinating and beautiful gardens.
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This week I have come to South Africa.
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It is the home of some of our best loved garden plants,
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which grow in some of the most dramatic scenery in the world.
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Yet, I have avoided coming here until now.
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I grew up with a hatred of the racial segregation under the apartheid regime,
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and felt that to be an impassable ideological barrier to the enjoyment of the beauties of South Africa.
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And that view, I confess, fossilised and blocked
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all floral temptations to visit.
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But, that's history now. And, although I would be dishonest
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if I said that I didn't bring a bit of that baggage with me,
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I really want to see this extraordinary beautiful country,
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to meet the people and, of course, to see as many gardens as I can.
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I'm starting in Cape Town to see how gardens reflect the emergence
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of South Africa as a nation, and I shall visit the famous
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Kirstenbosch Botanic Gardens, amongst others.
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And then going on to the Drakensberg mountains
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to see some of our familiar garden plants growing in their exhilarating natural environment.
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Finally I go to Johannesburg
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to see how one of South Africa's grandest gardens is changing,
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as well as a township garden that has desperately limited resources but is rich in hope and inspiration.
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Cape Town sits beneath the famous silhouette of Table Mountain,
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and this provides the backdrop for my first garden.
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I've decided to start my journey here at Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden at the base of Table Mountain,
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because it's one of the very few botanic gardens that just has native plants.
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So if you want to see all the plants of South Africa in one place, well, this is where you have to come.
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The gardens themselves extend to almost 100 carefully tended acres,
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but this is only a small proportion of the 1,300 acre estate
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that runs right to the very top of Table Mountain
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with a mixture of woodland and the indigenous scrub known as Fynbos.
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The land was bought by Cecil Rhodes in 1895
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and bequeathed to the South African people at his death in 1902.
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In 1913, the National Botanic Garden of South Africa,
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devoted entirely to indigenous plants, was set up on the site.
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I met one of the senior horticulturalists, Cherise Viljoen, who offered to show me round.
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How many South African plants are there here?
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- In the garden?
- Yeah.
- There are over 7,000 species.
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Oh, that's unbelievable!
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Yeah, and there's still more to go around.
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We're still adding to the collections every day, and to the garden.
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Amongst this huge diversity of plants,
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the garden specialises in local Cape flora.
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The showiest of these are the Proteas,
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of which there are over 350 different types.
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- So these are the pincushion forms now.
- What's interesting is to see a mass of them.
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They do make a fantastic display, and really bring it home to you.
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And they've got quite a sweet common name, it's firokise in Afrikaans,
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and it means matches, or matchsticks.
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- Can I pick it up?
- Yeah.
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- It's perfect, isn't it?
- You just need a flint.
- See, that's charming.
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And the thing that you always find is the birds are always on them,
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sipping nectar or digging for a seed.
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Then Cherise took me to see the King Protea, the national flower,
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expecting, I'm sure, delight and rapture.
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But I fear my reaction proved something of a disappointment.
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I've got something really special to show you, if you'd like to step in.
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- It says, "Don't step in the beds." I like that.
- Yes, but you're with me, you may step in. And here it is.
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What do you think of this?
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It's an ugly flower, isn't it?
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It's a... Now, you see this...
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I've seen pictures of this sort of thing.
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It's not doing anything for me, I have to say. Erm...
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Well, it reminds you of an artichoke.
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Arti is right. It's artificial, rather than artichoke.
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- But there we go.
- OK!
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Well, you can't like them all.
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But the wild pelargoniums growing as sprawling shrubs that Cherise showed me were a delight.
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These are the ancestors of our familiar cultivated regal pelargoniums,
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and it was strange to see something so powerfully connected to my childhood growing here.
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You just never see that.
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This great drift on big plants.
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This is a very natural planting, this is how you would come across it growing wild on a mountainside.
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Something is smelling wonderful.
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It'll be the salvia.
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- Is this a salvia?
- It's a salvia.
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- It doesn't look like a salvia.
- It's our wild African salvia.
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Oh! It's lovely. It's lemony and musky and warm and...
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It definitely contributes to the Fynbos scent that you get off the...
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the veldt when you're going through it.
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You see, if I'm honest I think
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of...words like the veldt is a very butch sort of word.
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It doesn't say musky, lemony fragrance.
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No, it doesn't. Wild fields don't...
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work for us.
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Veldt is just veldt. It's a very...
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it's an Afrikaans word, but it's traditionally used to describe the wild areas in the Cape.
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South Africa is home to 24,000 different species of flowering plants,
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that's one tenth of all those that grow on Earth.
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There is also a small group of plants that were here long
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before flowers even evolved - the Cycads.
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Cycads look like palm trees, but they date back 200 million years
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and haven't changed at all since they finished evolving 50 million years ago.
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If you had to go back 150 million years, it would pretty much look
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exactly like that, except there would be a great big dinosaur behind it.
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So they haven't evolved at all?
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Very, very little.
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And then, amongst this Jurassic foliage,
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I spotted something that I found as thrilling to me as any dinosaur.
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Well, here we are with the Cycads, and also an owlet.
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A Spotted Eagle Owl.
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A Spotted Eagle, it's beautiful.
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- Monty, have you spotted her?
- Oh! I can see her.
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- Good! The mother owl.
- How amazing.
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You're a very beautiful girl.
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Isn't that amazing? Isn't that just an extraordinary experience?
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- It's nice to see what the chick is going to look like when he loses all his fluff as well.
- We're blessed.
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Monty, if we go down here, I can show you a really horrid Cycad.
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It's kind of like organic barbed wire.
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Aren't they truly, truly horrid?
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Encephalartos horridus.
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They're a spiky thing, they really are.
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I guess when you get spiked by that, you know you've been spiked.
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- And that is entirely designed to stop dinosaur jaws?
- Yes.
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See, I think they're more beautiful than the King Protea.
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- I knew you were gonna fall back to that one!
- It's true!
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I was a bit daunted...
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when I came here, and I think that was as much as anything
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through my sense of not knowing enough about South African plants.
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One of the good things about today for me is that I realise I know more than I thought I did.
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However, the majority here is new and unusual,
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and it's really good to see them all in setting and in context.
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That's what a botanical garden is like - a reference library.
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Put that against this extraordinary backdrop, it really is so beautiful,
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and then that makes for a fascinating and beautiful way
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to begin this journey.
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But I think with this experience, and feeling a bit more confident,
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I think the next step is to go and see these same plants
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in a much more human context.
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Somewhere modern, somewhere quirky and uttlerly different to this.
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So I'm going a couple of hours east of the city to Franschhoek,
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which is a small town near to Stellenbosch,
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the intellectual centre for Afrikaners.
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As we travel, I get a glimpse of a different facet of life in South Africa.
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Just on the left...
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is a township which is just a series of shacks, tiny shacks,
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looking more like allotment sheds than houses.
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We leave Cape Town and come into a countryside of orchards and vineyards
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at the foot of the high mountains that defined the limits
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of the Cape colonisation for centuries.
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The Huguenots, arriving in 1688,
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based their Vineyards there and Franschhoek means "French Corner".
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I'm here to see the garden of Henk Scholtz,
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a garden designer and artist.
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This is a small garden that circles around the house.
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The front path runs between beds containing native strelitzias,
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framed and contained by tightly clipped privet hedges.
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At the back, Henk has a semi-circular lawn
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and a verandah that runs the length of the house
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with stupendous views out to the mountains.
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You do have this amazing borrowed landscape.
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I mean, it is about as dramatic as it could be, isn't it?
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No, I mean it's spectacular.
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And what do you think is the secret of a small garden? Because there is a great failing it seems to me.
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A lot of people say, "If only I had a bigger garden, everything would be OK."
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I don't agree with that at all.
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For me it's what you do with that space, number one.
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First of all it's to divide it up in as many spaces as possible.
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It doesn't have to be a solid wall or a solid hedge.
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If you step down the steps, down to this lawn space, you're in a total different room.
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I love this space.
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I enjoy this space.
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For me, this is my palette where I play.
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I don't think I've ever seen a garden so intensely detailed.
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Some of this is playful and some very practical, like the steep angle or batter on the hedges.
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In the UK you really don't see that. No. They tend to be cut straight.
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That's for the maximum sun on both sides, and you get a better growth, and that avoids all the dead ends.
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- And what is this?
- This is ligustrum.
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- It is a privet.
- Yeah.
- You see, you very rarely see a privet,
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in the UK, used for a low hedge.
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Really? Yeah.
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Between the privet hedges and the boundary fence were clipped balls of plumbago,
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which I had always thought of as a sprawly house plant.
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Henk doesn't only shape his plants, but his sculptures made
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from recycled materials are also an important part of the garden.
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Floating implements, just blow in the wind.
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Lovely. Really beautiful. And I like your water feature, I suppose is what it is.
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- That's basically an old South African version of Feng Shui.
- Right. OK!
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- That's my security guard.
- Yeah.
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- I can see she's...
- With the Medusa outfit.
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She's a beauty. A great beauty.
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Everything in the garden is tweaked, trimmed or adorned. I love...
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- as obviously one would, all the little touches in this garden.
- Thank you.
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- And there are a lot.
- It's found objects.
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Although small, at every turn, there is a new composed view.
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The lawn is describing the circle.
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- Absolutely.
- And I really like that.
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And this is lovely.
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I really like this. The way that...
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it's enclosed in and this... the curves of the hedge.
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It basically grows on you. It's like an organic thing that's alive.
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You can basically shake this thing, I mean, it's like...
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But that's what we call ragoda, ragoda starta like saltbush.
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Smell your hands, and then you'll stop doing that.
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It smells, dear viewer...
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of slightly off fish!
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- Now he tells me.
- But it clips beautifully.
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Yeah, indeed.
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Henk told me that he trims the entire garden every 12 days throughout the year,
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and the combination of his tight clipping and idiosyncratic playfulness is evident everywhere.
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And the flowering plants seem to thrive spectacularly on his regime.
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It's the most floriferous trachelospermum
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- I have ever seen.
- Sure.
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I must say, it's extremely happy.
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And that's just one plant.
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- That's one plant that's in that space.
- Amazing.
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Yeah.
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And suddenly, this muted palette becomes shocking pink with the bougainvillea.
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- And I love the... Where I'm standing now, that curve is perfect.
- Yeah.
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Very beautiful indeed.
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And this is probably, the most photogenic garden I've ever been to.
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Everywhere you look, you turn your head and there's a picture.
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I love the way that it's the expression of one man's work, that it's personal and it's quirky.
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The relationship between the sculpture and the plants
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and the design, the whole thing has been fabulous.
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And I particularly like the way that it's used indigenous plants,
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that it's an expression of South African gardening and art,
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and after all that's what I came here to see.
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So that's... that's been very inspirational.
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But the next stop is a complete contrast.
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I want to back to the middle of Cape Town,
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and really see where all this began.
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See where and how the first South African gardens started.
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The first South African garden is bound up with the story
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of the Dutch East India company.
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By the time that their ships would round the Cape Of Good Hope
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on their way to the Far East, the crews would be exhausted
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and often suffering terribly from scurvy, after anything up to six months at sea after leaving Holland.
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Table Mountain stood out
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from an otherwise very level and bland coastline.
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This meant that sailors used it to navigate
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and it became a major landmark on the long, long journey.
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So in 1652, a small group of men and women colonisers set ashore
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at its base, specifically to cultivate ground that could supply
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the ships with fresh fruit and vegetables.
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This was immediately a success
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and that initial garden expanded to become The Company Garden.
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Most of it still survives as a public park
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in the middle of the city.
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And this tree is a remnant from that first garden.
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This is Pyrus communis. It's a pear.
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It's got these evergreen,
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rather leathery leaves that are not typical of a pear.
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But I've got one in my own garden. It's indigenous to northern Europe,
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and this is a survivor from those days.
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People didn't found the initial colony of Cape Town on this site
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because of the harbour, the natural harbour here was rather poor.
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The reason that people settled here was because of the clouds on the mountain.
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The clouds condense, water falls, it percolates down through the mountain, and then reappears here
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on the flat ground as springs, which meant that they had a constant source of irrigation.
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And that's why they settled here.
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The Cape has a Mediterranean climate,
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which is wet in winter but bone dry and hot in summer.
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So having a constant water supply was vital to the garden's success.
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This is one of the original springs
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that was used for the garden, and of course the water which has come
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down from the top of Table Mountain filtered down and is still running.
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Although in its heyday this was five and a half hectares
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of very organised, rectilinear Dutch vegetable growing,
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it soon proved to be not adequate for the needs of both the colony
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and also the ships that kept coming in.
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So company employees were given permission to set up farms
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which could supplement the original Company Garden produce.
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In the garden, the fruit and vegetables were gradually replaced
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by ornamental plants. By 1840 it was a full blown pleasure garden.
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But the garden remains the heart of Cape Town and the birth of modern, colonised, South Africa.
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Whereas The Company Garden was very much a corporate place with practical beginnings
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that became a pleasure garden, I've come here to Stellenberg which is a private house.
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It's the oldest privately owned house in the whole of South Africa,
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which I've heard is a very beautiful garden.
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But, perhaps more interestingly, also should tell me something of South Africa's colonial history.
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Stellenberg was part of the cultural mix that colonised the cape from the outset.
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It was built in 1742 by an Englishman called John White,
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who then changed his name to Jan de Witt
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and built it in a Dutch colonial style.
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The five-acre garden is set around the house
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and has a distinctly European feel. It is grand, elegant and charming.
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Unfortunately, the weather turned only too European as well.
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Oh, it's typical. I come to South Africa in its summer
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and it's pelting with rain, really really wet.
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But I'm English, and I won't let a little rain come between
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me and a beautiful garden, which even in the wet, it clearly is.
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What's interesting about this
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is that it's a white garden,
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with this white parterre and a white house.
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A house which is very Dutch, not at all English.
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Now they call this a white garden and all the plants are shades of white,
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but in fact it's a green garden and I think that's true of all so-called white gardens
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because the white makes the green seem greener.
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And the fact that it's so wet today makes the whole thing shine with that extraordinary green intensity.
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00:21:53,360 --> 00:21:56,240
Well, it's always nice to see a vegetable garden,
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and this is a very carefully mannered, tasteful affair.
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You feel that...
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they're not having to survive off these veg.
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They're growing for as much the way they look as they are, but it's lovely.
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I'm not letting the rain dampen my spirits and, in fact, there are very nice touches.
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For instance, these steps. Very very shallow steps, almost a slope.
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It looks wonderful, it's got real style.
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And, as I go round the world, I always see little bits and pieces and I think, "I'll nick that.
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"I'll use that for my own garden." And that's one of those things.
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00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:06,160
See, that's interesting. You've got the melianthus, which to me is exotic and beautiful
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and a very South African plant, and then the canna behind it.
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And a fantastic brunsvigia. I mean look at the size of the fantastic,
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huge flowering trumpets.
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Here I am in...the end of November,
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with delphiniums and roses,
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and verbena bonariensis and mulleins and foxgloves.
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All the elements
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of a lovely English mixed border.
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All the tricks of the horticultural design trade are being wheeled out.
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Parterres with santolina and lavender,
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the Luchens seat painted a tasteful colour.
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You've seen it all before, but the truth is, the reason why you've seen it before is because it is lovely.
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Stellenberg is a garden made with great care and love,
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and the Dutch house and English garden
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measure out a colonial past with great elegance and style.
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Its heritage is colonial but deeply rooted in the culture of Northern Europe.
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However, having seen this,
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I now think I need to sort of escape all those English influences,
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and just find something that is neat South Africa. Undiluted.
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So I'm heading off down the Cape Peninsula, just south of the city.
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I've come on down the Cape, and the rain has cleared, thank goodness.
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I've stopped just to take an overview because, from here,
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I can look back and see Table Mountain
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with its tablecloth of cloud still on it, Kirstenbosch on the slopes,
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and Stellenberg where I've just come from, tucked in down below that with cloud still round it.
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Probably still raining there.
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But up here it's windy, but for the moment it's dry.
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00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:28,960
Table Mountain is at the head of a range of mountains
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which run down the Cape Peninsula to the Cape of Good Hope,
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which is the symbolic southern tip of Africa.
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It was originally known as the Cape of Storms and is still a tricky
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piece of water whose rocky coast is littered with shipwrecks.
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This is the setting for my last Cape Garden,
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created by Donovan van der Heyden and called "Li'l Eden".
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Donovan's house and garden is part of an unofficial shanty town
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of wooden and tin huts thrown up cheek by jowl
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above the fishing port of Hout Bay.
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His garden is a series of terraces on the hillside
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looking out over the blue waters of the bay.
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00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:29,280
What was your own inspiration to get it going?
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From the mountains. I've spent a lot of time roaming the mountains, going through the water streams.
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You know, studying the fixtures and,
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you know, the forms of the plants and how they compliment each other, their relationship.
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What you're describing is very sophisticated
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understanding of nature and how it works.
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I take it from the people that we as a local people here descend from.
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They lived close to nature, you know.
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They added harmony with nature and to me, it's really...
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That is my inspiration and maintaining that.
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In terms of this garden here,
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is it constantly evolving, or has it reached a point at which
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- you're happy with it and it's staying?
- No.
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I don't think I'll ever be satisfied.
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In terms of my garden, I see myself as an artist.
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00:27:21,520 --> 00:27:25,600
With an artist there's always new scenery, something new that inspires
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00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:27,960
him that he wants to capture on canvas.
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00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:31,920
And similarly with me, when I walk around in nature there's always
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something captivating there that I see and it's like, wow!
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You know I must... And then I come to my garden and I experiment and I play around with the rocks.
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You know, and similarly as an artist, with textures, colours, you know?
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So, yeah.
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- It's always changing.
- What do your neighbours think?
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00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:53,000
They haven't all got gardens, what do they think about what you do?
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It's an informal settlement, a squatter camp
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and any available open space is utilised
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to put up another bungalow for someone to live in, you know.
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So, when you take space and make a garden, you know you get challenged,
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00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:09,760
and this was met in the same way.
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00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,720
But the community does benefit directly from Donovan's garden.
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00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:18,680
He's running a project to introduce local children
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to the value and pleasures of gardening and growing plants.
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The parallel basically that if you plant a seed,
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and you water, then you nurture it and you see it growing and maturing into a well-established tree.
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You pick the fruits of it, and at the end of the day you can enjoy the fruits.
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00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:39,400
The same way, the elders knew that if they planted the seeds in us
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as young people back then, the fruits would ultimately be reaped when we are grown.
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We would be taking on that kind of work.
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We've got an interest as humans to protect what we have.
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00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:56,440
Donovan and his vision of a society literally growing out of the soil,
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and the plants of the Cape seem to me to make his tiny garden
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00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:02,680
on the shanty hillside truly beautiful.
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00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:08,880
But now it's time to leave the Cape and, before I visit my next garden,
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I want to see some more of that spectacular South African landscape.
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00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:18,040
So I'm going to take myself off inland to the Drakensberg Mountains,
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if for no other reason than that's the place where most of the plants
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00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:26,000
that I recognise as being South African in my own garden come from.
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00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:33,720
This means that I am now travelling east to the Drakensburg,
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or Dragon's Mountains.
398
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:42,680
It's a curious thing that so many of the plants of this region,
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00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:45,120
which are so different and so far from home,
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00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:48,640
have adapted so well to our own gardens.
401
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:55,360
And you also have the truly exotic growing here almost carelessly.
402
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:57,520
Can you just stop here a sec?
403
00:29:58,520 --> 00:29:59,760
Look at that!
404
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:04,920
Here, just by the side of the road,
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00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:07,280
you've got arum lilies growing like a weed.
406
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:14,080
This is a wet bit on the margins.
407
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:17,320
And here it is, look at that.
408
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:23,480
People in London will go and pay a fortune for a bunch of those!
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00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:25,960
That is, I think,
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00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:28,720
Zantedeschia Albomaculata.
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00:30:30,520 --> 00:30:33,280
And it is just beautiful.
412
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:35,600
Just growing by the side of the road!
413
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:47,680
These mountains rise up to about 3,000 metres,
414
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:51,640
which is about twice as high as Ben Nevis.
415
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:00,720
I absolutely hadn't expected this.
416
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:03,080
A sort of alpine meadow...
417
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:05,080
filled with flowers.
418
00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:10,520
This is a candelabra lily.
419
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:14,200
And this whopping great flowerhead.
420
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:18,560
And then next to it there's a little aster there, and a white scilla there.
421
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:28,480
The Drakensberg range is on the east side of South Africa,
422
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:31,560
and has the opposite climate to that of the Cape.
423
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:34,720
So here the rains fall during the warm, wet summers which
424
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:38,560
gives the plants a growing season similar to that of Northern Europe.
425
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:46,960
This purple flower here is, I'm sure, Vernonia.
426
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:50,800
Now I planted this at Berryfields just a few months ago
427
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:54,720
and here it is, growing in its true home
428
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:57,320
in the Drakensberg Mountains.
429
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:03,960
This is a funny one, this is Phygelius aequalis, which is becoming increasingly common now.
430
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:09,120
You see it in lots of gardens and garden centres. And here's where it really wants to be.
431
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:20,200
I'm heading back because it's gone from being beautifully clear and hot
432
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,840
to really wet and there's rumbles of thunder.
433
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:26,000
And apparently the last thing you should do is - there we are -
434
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:29,960
hang about if there's any lightning in the mountains, cos it gets you.
435
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:32,440
Ooh look. Look at that.
436
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:34,040
Come in here and have a look.
437
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:37,600
That little white flower is a streptocarpus,
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00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:43,360
in flower, growing on an almost vertical damp bank.
439
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:50,560
The storms tend to be limited to the afternoons
440
00:32:50,560 --> 00:32:55,000
and the next morning I get up early to go further up in the mountains.
441
00:32:56,520 --> 00:33:01,520
Once you get higher up, and I'm now at about 2,500 metres,
442
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:05,280
the landscape forms itself
443
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:10,840
into the kind of thing that people very carefully construct in rock gardens.
444
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:15,000
And here you can see little helichrysums just...
445
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:20,240
in little niches and perches in the rocks which are formed beautifully.
446
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:26,040
You couldn't do this better with all the money and skill that British horticulture could give you.
447
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:37,640
The ground here is dappled
448
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:41,600
with these lovely little pink and white flowers.
449
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,400
It's rhodohypoxis,
450
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:47,040
and it's a tiny little thing. I've never grown it.
451
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:50,960
But you can grow it in the UK, but normally as a pan in a container.
452
00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:56,160
And here there are tens of thousands of them, sprinkled over the ground.
453
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:03,080
I'm walking through...
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00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:06,400
what really amounts to a field of Eucomis.
455
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:12,160
You can see them here with the flowers beginning to form and the little pineapple topknot.
456
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:15,080
Now these cost a fortune in the UK, but here they are
457
00:34:15,080 --> 00:34:19,640
nearly 8,000 feet up, on the side of a freezing cold mountain.
458
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:33,760
Now look at this little clump of Lobelia.
459
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:39,320
Here, 8,000 feet up, growing cheek by jowl with the Eucomis.
460
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:53,440
The Drakensberg really is the most extraordinary vast, beautiful sight.
461
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:02,080
But on a day like today, it's hard to imagine that in winter
462
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:05,960
it quite regularly gets down to about minus two or three here.
463
00:35:05,960 --> 00:35:08,120
And on the colder parts higher up,
464
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:12,640
down to minus 20 or even colder, and snow is really common.
465
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:16,480
Which means that essentially it's alpine, and this, of course,
466
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:19,040
is the reason why the plants from this area
467
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:22,640
adapt so well to our gardens in Northern Europe,
468
00:35:22,640 --> 00:35:24,280
and that's the connection.
469
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:33,120
Seeing plants in their natural environment is the best way to learn about them
470
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:38,760
and I'll never look again on a hanging basket filled with Lobelia without thinking of the Drakensberg.
471
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:45,880
The Drakensberg is a giant escarpment.
472
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,680
At its back is an arid plateau,
473
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:52,600
the high veldt, which has yet another distinct zone of life.
474
00:35:53,600 --> 00:35:57,200
This is the setting for an unlikely garden built here nearly 80 years
475
00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:03,320
ago by the magnificently named Tudor Boddham-Whetham, and his wife, Ruby.
476
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:07,240
Named Kirklington, after the Nottingham village where Tudor was born,
477
00:36:07,240 --> 00:36:10,680
the remote house looks over the distant savannah
478
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:13,600
and is more commonly known as "the garden in the veldt".
479
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:22,640
The garden is cut into the hillside in a series of terraces
480
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:25,960
although only the area around the house remains tended today.
481
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:30,880
But there still remain hints and signs of something much grander.
482
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:35,240
Thick stone paths and walls are still there amongst the rough growth.
483
00:36:35,240 --> 00:36:37,720
And beneath the overgrown grass of the orchard
484
00:36:37,720 --> 00:36:40,120
lies a sleeping giant of a garden.
485
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:48,040
These steps lead down...
486
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:54,640
..way out of the garden, and these are really solid
487
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:57,320
paving stones and steps.
488
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:02,960
You see they go on and on and right down!
489
00:37:03,920 --> 00:37:08,560
And these steps come down to this grand sweeping staircase.
490
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:15,960
This was clearly a deliberate attempt to make a grandiose
491
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:20,800
English country house garden carved out of the high veldt stone.
492
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:27,240
This is garden making on the most ambitious of scales in the most improbable of circumstances.
493
00:37:27,240 --> 00:37:32,280
Tudor's descendants, the Moffett family, still live on the farm and told me about its creation.
494
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:40,600
They had to dress all the stone, cut it on the farm, haul it in
495
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:45,360
and then start laying out the paths and the...
496
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:47,400
terraces and building the walls.
497
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:51,600
This is really ambitious stuff you're describing.
498
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:53,760
Very, very ambitious. Yes.
499
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:57,920
Climate-wise, it was a battle.
500
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:01,320
We are pretty extreme here, being so high.
501
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:04,120
January, February when there's a shortage of rain,
502
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:05,840
the garden really suffers.
503
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:09,720
At times we bring in tankers, cart up water on an on-going basis
504
00:38:09,720 --> 00:38:13,600
to keep those few things going which are more important.
505
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:17,000
- The crops get it first, the farm crops, and then...
- Or the cattle.
506
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:21,120
The rain comes and then you won't have rain for a long time, again.
507
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:23,480
And it streams off the mountain.
508
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:29,400
Gathering and storing water is the key to the garden's existence.
509
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:33,480
Even before he began the garden, Tudor made extraordinary and extreme
510
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:38,040
measures to trap the storm water as it tumbled down the cliffs.
511
00:38:38,040 --> 00:38:42,440
This path behind the house is essentially a drain, a stone drain
512
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:46,360
that comes down, goes underneath this building, out this pipe
513
00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:48,520
and then along this path
514
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:53,040
which meets in the middle the water which pours off the hillside.
515
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:56,000
It comes down here...
516
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,080
and comes to this point.
517
00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:01,280
Water pouring in down there, through a drain there,
518
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:05,840
through this system, into this enormous tank,
519
00:39:05,840 --> 00:39:09,960
which was designed specifically to water the garden.
520
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:13,920
So Tudor's plans were, from the outset, wildly,
521
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:18,480
crazily grand, and without this kind of ingenious hydro-engineering,
522
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:22,200
a garden like this would never have been possible here.
523
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:26,960
I came up here to see the water culverts cut into the rock,
524
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:32,960
and get an idea of this great cliff face and the water pouring down to the garden.
525
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:35,960
But now I'm up here...
526
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:38,520
it's the view that is fantastic, it's awesome.
527
00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:42,200
And it's all, or a great chunk of it, connected to the house and garden.
528
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:45,680
So you have the house and the garden below, and then the fields
529
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:49,880
stretching right out for a great chunk of what you can see.
530
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:52,360
And for most of us,
531
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:56,520
to live in scenery of this scale is unimaginable.
532
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:09,120
So now I enter into the final leg of my journey, heading across the high plains to Johannesburg.
533
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:11,560
But I'm going to make a little detour first
534
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:14,440
to visit another garden.
535
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:17,640
This is one that I know very little about,
536
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:20,040
but what I've heard whets my appetite.
537
00:40:20,040 --> 00:40:25,480
It's grown organically in so much that it wasn't really planned. I know that it's just sort of accrued.
538
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:28,880
It mainly uses succulents from the region
539
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:31,120
and also a lot of rocks and stones.
540
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:39,080
Unlike my last visit, this is not a garden that tries to fight the natural environment
541
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:42,760
but instead embraces it and in that it is truly of the place,
542
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:44,680
a wholly South African garden.
543
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:49,400
Everything here, including the house and its furniture, has been designed and made by the owners.
544
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,040
I asked them what it was called.
545
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:55,760
It doesn't really have a name, they said. So let's call it the Magaliesberg Rock Garden.
546
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:04,520
What I'm...
547
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:06,720
absolutely loving...
548
00:41:07,720 --> 00:41:09,800
..is the way that...
549
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:11,680
stone,
550
00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:14,760
wood and plant material
551
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:20,840
are merging and becoming completely fused as an expression.
552
00:41:21,720 --> 00:41:23,400
And this is deliberate.
553
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:25,920
The garden, made by a painter and a sculptor,
554
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:29,480
is being created as a work of land art.
555
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:39,240
See, look up there. Look at that.
556
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:43,480
That's just beautiful.
557
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:47,840
I have to say that when we first came here,
558
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:54,920
I knew that it was going to be quite interesting and I'd seen an odd picture or two, but I had no idea...
559
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:57,080
that it was all done on this scale.
560
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:03,840
The natural slope of the hillside has been gauged and hollowed into one vast sculpture
561
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:08,640
so ravines, hillocks and rocky passes leading nowhere
562
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:10,720
map out this new made-up land.
563
00:42:10,720 --> 00:42:16,200
And bowls, ponds and wooden bony carcasses jostle the stone
564
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:19,640
until they marry into a kind of composite, organic material.
565
00:42:19,640 --> 00:42:21,160
It's breathtaking.
566
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:36,280
Fantastic. The health and safety people would be having a fit now.
567
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,400
And if I fall off, well at least I've had fun.
568
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:46,640
I've often thought and I suspect often said that,
569
00:42:46,640 --> 00:42:50,040
half of gardening is just grown ups going outside to play.
570
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:55,280
And what I feel here, is that this is just untrammelled play.
571
00:42:55,280 --> 00:43:01,480
Someone who's raised playing outside in the garden to an art form.
572
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:24,200
Even though the stonework and the sculpture seems to dominate.
573
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:28,480
And I think if it was just stonework and wood,
574
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:32,280
it would be beautiful and interesting, but it wouldn't quite be enough.
575
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:36,160
What really makes it come alive and what peoples it, are the plants.
576
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:53,360
There are a wide range of drought tolerant plants, grasses, agaves, and many other indigenous South
577
00:43:53,360 --> 00:44:00,080
African succulents, many of which have been rescued from development and bought here to be nurtured.
578
00:44:01,720 --> 00:44:05,160
But it is the giant aloes that dominate.
579
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:08,840
Some of the bigger ones are just bursting with personality.
580
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:11,600
You feel like you ought to go up and introduce yourself.
581
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:18,520
All of these plants are perfectly adapted to the arid conditions here,
582
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:21,040
as is the inevitable wildlife they attract.
583
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:24,600
There's even a weaver bird colony just outside the front door.
584
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:34,400
The garden, down to the last stone, is the creation of the sculptor
585
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:38,640
Geoffrey Armstrong and painter Wendy Vincent.
586
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:41,240
It's a happy hour garden, that's how it started.
587
00:44:41,240 --> 00:44:46,680
After you had spent the day painting or carving, you'd then come and sit
588
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:50,760
and all of a sudden said, "Right, let's have a stream.
589
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:53,800
- "Let's have a pond."
- We all do it.
- And...
- Exactly!
590
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:58,720
- You have a cup of tea in the morning and you say, "Let's have a stream!"
- Yes.
591
00:44:58,720 --> 00:45:03,000
We're already laying another pond, even though the water's drying up.
592
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:04,960
I like your style.
593
00:45:04,960 --> 00:45:10,280
And that became obsessive and then started to...
594
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:16,080
about six years ago, one started to think of it as a work of art.
595
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:20,120
Yes. It's quite common to see works of art in a garden,
596
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:21,960
it's quite common for artists
597
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:25,880
to have a keen interest in gardens as an expression of their art.
598
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:29,720
It's not very common to see gardens as a work of art.
599
00:45:29,720 --> 00:45:32,240
- Was it intended as that?
- It changed.
600
00:45:32,240 --> 00:45:36,760
We were just enthusiasts, you know, bringing plants and rocks in.
601
00:45:36,760 --> 00:45:40,480
And then we started looking at the whole, and that was then
602
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:44,120
when we saw that it was getting more important than just that.
603
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:47,240
It was actually important to bring in the environment
604
00:45:47,240 --> 00:45:52,680
and to see through, and to look at different aspects from different angles, and to see that you needed
605
00:45:52,680 --> 00:45:57,040
to repeat something somewhere else and where you would cluster things.
606
00:45:57,040 --> 00:45:59,720
Just like painting a canvas, actually.
607
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:07,680
Now British horticulture can be occasionally a bit
608
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:10,960
pompous and self-referential, but a garden like this,
609
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:15,680
entirely in tune with its setting, that celebrates the relationship between plants and art
610
00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:19,600
and yet maybe the sort of earth-mania that every gardener recognises,
611
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:22,440
rekindles every kind of enthusiasm.
612
00:46:22,440 --> 00:46:26,840
So I continue on to Johannesburg bouyed up with inspiration.
613
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:30,080
I'm on my way to a garden now called Brenthurst,
614
00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:35,880
which is reckoned to be the biggest, and the grandest and the best-known garden in the whole of South Africa.
615
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:40,480
It's run by a woman called Strilli Opppenheimer, who, since she took
616
00:46:40,480 --> 00:46:44,440
it over about seven years ago, has turned it completely organic.
617
00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:48,840
So on two counts, this is likely to be a really interesting garden for me.
618
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:54,560
Brenthurst is certainly grand, For a start, it is huge -
619
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:58,400
45 acres of intensive gardens right in the middle of Johannesberg.
620
00:47:06,160 --> 00:47:09,920
It has belonged to the Oppenheimer family since the early 1920s, whose
621
00:47:09,920 --> 00:47:13,680
fortune was derived from the local diamond and gold mining industries.
622
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:20,160
The garden has many different sections including sweeping lawns, statuary, a large Japanese garden,
623
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:25,960
mature woodlands, a biodynamic vegetable garden and areas that seem to be left to grow wild.
624
00:47:31,240 --> 00:47:36,600
Over the past seven years, the garden has been going through a kind of horticultural revolution,
625
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:39,320
which has shocked some but thrilled as many others.
626
00:47:39,320 --> 00:47:42,360
And this is entirely due to the naturalistic principles
627
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:45,200
of its current mistress, Strilli Oppenheimer.
628
00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:49,240
I could quite easily and find it exciting,
629
00:47:49,240 --> 00:47:53,200
to do nothing at all with the garden and just watch it...
630
00:47:54,720 --> 00:47:58,600
..become totally wild again,
631
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:02,520
and meet its climax and create another rhythm.
632
00:48:03,480 --> 00:48:07,440
The garden was originally laid out in 1904, but much of the existing
633
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:11,440
structure was added in 1959 by the garden designer Joan Pimm.
634
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:14,840
However it remained as a conventional, highly controlled,
635
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:17,960
Edwardian garden until Strilli took over in 2001.
636
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:21,680
Now the lawns consist of local species of grass,
637
00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:24,640
whole swathes of which are encouraged to run to seed
638
00:48:24,640 --> 00:48:29,880
and borders are encouraged to grow naturally without obvious attempts to tidy or control.
639
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:36,120
However, the vistas and views are carefully maintained.
640
00:48:38,200 --> 00:48:40,280
I think that the scale is superb.
641
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:50,000
On the hillside above the statues is a huge Japanese garden commisioned by Strilli and her husband, Nicky.
642
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:04,000
This was done by one of the gardeners of the Emperor,
643
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:07,120
and so for me...
644
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:10,520
I know something about Japanese gardens but not a lot,
645
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:14,280
and what I needed was that if we had something which was called
646
00:49:14,280 --> 00:49:18,200
a Japanese garden that it was truly authentic to the Japanese.
647
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:23,520
And for me what it does is create a tension between the sort of gardening
648
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:28,040
where I am comfortable which is very natural and, don't prune anything,
649
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:31,280
and this totally clipped garden.
650
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:39,120
Certainly the almost obsessive control of Japanese horticulture
651
00:49:39,120 --> 00:49:43,520
in this garden creates a dynamic of balancing tensions, and ideologies.
652
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:45,360
It gives the place energy.
653
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:47,760
Round the corner, we go up to the Kopje garden.
654
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:53,200
Now Kopje is an African rocky outcrop, and here the plants are again given a free rein.
655
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:56,560
For a lot of people who want to garden naturally, are becoming
656
00:49:56,560 --> 00:50:00,200
environmentally much more aware, who want to be in tune with what they
657
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:05,040
conceive as a correct way to behave towards the natural world,
658
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:07,520
have only their garden in which to operate.
659
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:10,600
But I think they must be conscious about what they want
660
00:50:10,600 --> 00:50:14,200
and what they're trying to do, and have that relationship.
661
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:18,840
When they have a real relationship with the plants, then they're...
662
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:22,480
I mean it's like with their children, they let their children grow.
663
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:26,720
They don't totally prune and, or maybe some people do,
664
00:50:26,720 --> 00:50:30,040
you know, control their children and then they're a disaster.
665
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:37,080
Brenthurst is a carefully managed balance between natural freedom and human control.
666
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:41,600
Clipped hedges contain untrammelled growth, and everything is connected
667
00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:45,080
and interwoven by paths, many of which are decorated
668
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:48,000
with assay cores from the mines.
669
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:57,160
Strilli takes me to the terrace just below the house to show me the broad
670
00:50:57,160 --> 00:51:01,600
view, but in particular the large borders on the lawn below.
671
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:07,360
These were planned and planted and then left to grow pretty much
672
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:11,400
as they pleased, creating a constantly evolving display.
673
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:18,880
This is typical
674
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:24,360
of allowing really nature to do what it wants to do
675
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:29,280
and not imposing one's own view on it and it's just as beautiful,
676
00:51:29,280 --> 00:51:32,240
if not more beautiful, than it was as a mixed border.
677
00:51:38,960 --> 00:51:41,760
We in the UK make these borders,
678
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:44,560
we plant them carefully, we plan and design them.
679
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:50,560
We tweak and prune and preen them and try and establish a picture,
680
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:55,760
like a work of art, and somehow take the applause for it ourselves.
681
00:51:55,760 --> 00:52:01,640
Whereas what Strilli said about these mixed borders made a huge impression on me.
682
00:52:01,640 --> 00:52:04,120
Let the plants do their own thing.
683
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:07,920
Let them free, they'll do it fine without you.
684
00:52:07,920 --> 00:52:10,840
Now that's so inspirational,
685
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:15,480
and immediately I thought, "I like that a lot and I want to do it."
686
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:19,160
I want to get out in my own garden and do precisely that.
687
00:52:23,640 --> 00:52:29,280
The effect of Brenthurst, just like the rock garden at Magaliesberg, is to shake up my idea of how
688
00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:35,520
to garden, and redefine my image of what a garden can be and not to be overawed by that, but empowered.
689
00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:43,400
Before I leave South Africa, I have one last garden to visit,
690
00:52:43,400 --> 00:52:46,440
that takes me from one of the wealthiest white households
691
00:52:46,440 --> 00:52:50,680
to a school in the township of Tembisa on the outskirts of Johannesberg.
692
00:52:54,840 --> 00:53:00,560
Under apartheid, millions of black Africans were removed from their homes and re-housed in what were
693
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:07,800
often makeshift settlements called townships, which were often the focus of violent civil unrest.
694
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:11,480
Today, a million people live here in pretty harsh conditions
695
00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:13,560
and life is still tough.
696
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:18,360
But when I arrive at Thuthuka Primary School, I am welcomed in song.
697
00:53:34,720 --> 00:53:37,160
I don't know what's going on, not at all.
698
00:53:37,160 --> 00:53:41,040
I'm just drifting along in a river of singing children.
699
00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:45,680
I don't know what they're singing about, I haven't a clue what's happening but it's lovely.
700
00:53:53,840 --> 00:53:59,240
The school's garden is organic, biodynamic and grows mostly herbs and vegetables
701
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and my irrepressible guide is a teacher, Mr Lucas Mbembele.
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Come now and enter in the main gate to our garden, from our classroom.
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So now here this is our zenith, they are working here,
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they're taking off all the dry
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and the yellow leaves to put on our compost.
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- This is beautiful.
- Thank you.
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00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:28,360
- It's a wonderful garden.
- Thank you.
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Your beds are mixed.
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With different types of herbs, different types of vegetables.
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The reason is not to be able to repel the insects,
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and for them to be able to give each plant,
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- it gives food to the other one.
- As well as an important supply of vegetables,
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there are many traditional medicinal plants being grown here too.
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00:54:54,880 --> 00:54:59,680
Here at school, you can see there's no child who's coughing here.
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- This is the main medicine, we called "lingana."
- Lingana.
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Boil the water, and put there and make a tea and let the child drink.
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In no time that child is cured from flu or from cold.
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But there are some plants here which are ntended to help with a much more serious issue, HIV Aids.
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South Africa has one of the highest incidences of Aids, affecting over
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20% of the adult population and up to a third of these children here.
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I've got African potato here.
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We don't cure HIV Aids, but we suspend that spreading
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of that opportunist diseases through the HIV Aids.
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We take the bulbs, we chop them, we cook them, we let it drain.
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We're reducing the speed, how it can be able to kill you.
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A section of the garden is used as an outdoor classroom
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where the children are taught all kinds of subjects, from maths to horticulture.
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00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:19,640
Tell me, do you like working in the garden?
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- Yes.
- What do you like about it?
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00:56:22,160 --> 00:56:25,120
Watering plants, planting.
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I like sweeping.
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Why do you like that?
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- Because it cleans our garden.
- What sort of things do you learn?
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How to plant trees, how to take care of your environment.
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- Do you think the garden is beautiful?
- Yes.
- Why?
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We've got flowers, spinach, onions, cabbage...
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So that makes our garden look beautiful.
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00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:53,200
It certainly does.
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00:56:56,480 --> 00:57:02,280
If it belonged to a keen amateur gardener at home, I would admire it hugely.
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As it is, this is a school garden in a township in South Africa.
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So it's beautiful in its own right
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and it's a miracle, it's just wonderful.
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It's been a fascinating journey. There's no doubt that the gardens I've seen reflect the way
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that the nation is in a process of transition,
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evolving from a severe colonial past to a true South African identity.
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That identity is shaped as much as anything else by the landscape, which is just staggering.
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00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:45,680
And then there are the plants in that landscape.
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To see so many familiar garden plants growing in their natural form and habitat was a treat.
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Before I came here I had a fixed image of South Africa,
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forged by the horrors of apartheid,
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that had, I admit, become a pretty blinkered outlook.
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00:58:11,080 --> 00:58:14,160
In fact I'd go so far as to say that if I was really honest,
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00:58:14,160 --> 00:58:17,040
before I came here I didn't want to come at all.
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And now that I've been here I am just so glad that I did come.
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00:58:26,240 --> 00:58:29,800
Next time my journey will keep me closer to home
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as I go in search of some of the most inspiring gardens
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to be found in the more familiar territory of Northern Europe.
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Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
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E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk
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