CLASSICAL GARDEN

PRIVATE RESIDENCE | SOMERSET WEST

This steeply sloping garden sits on the southern foothills of the Hottentots Holland Mountains in Somerset West. Working closely with master gardener Pietman Diener, we created a formal terraced garden made up of a series of ‘rooms’ that reference each other, but each with a slightly different identity. These include an olive orchard, a rose garden, a ‘long walk’ and a tennis court.

The challenge to create these rooms on such an extreme gradient was exacerbated by the fact that we wanted to keep the existing trees and for them to seem as if they were planted and indeed belonged in each room. To solve this, we used a simple plant palette for continuity and uniformity, to create a quiet transition from one room to the next, encouraging exploration of the journey between manicured classicism and tailored nature.