Gay Prevost’s Elgin garden is colourful, magical and full of surprises, but most of all it welcomes you. Gay works tirelessly in the garden she loves, I’m told by her husband Mike Prevost, and it shows. It’s so obviously hers, and as she shows us around it’s clear that she’s a hands-on gardener, instrumental in designing and working in it with care and attention to detail.
Her garden at Lorraine Farm is one of the Elgin Open Gardens on November 5 and 6 , a great opportunity to visit many much-loved and carefully tended gardens.
Gay and Mike farm apples organically, which means she may not use pesticides or herbicides in her garden, and only organic fertilisers.
The garden has two very different areas – the lawns, huge trees (including a magnificent crab apple tree) and flowers, in what I call the sunny area, and then, down a steep drop, the shady garden with a natural rock face and big pond. Leading you from one to another are arches and beautifully constructed steps: Gay has used small pebbles to fill in the steps made with large rocks, and the steps themselves are a work of art.
This is my favourite time of the year, with plants at their blooming best. Roses do well here, and Gay’s roses are magnificent. One in particular, Duet, a full deep pink rose, catches my attention. Strawberries and roses grow well together, says Gay, and strawberry plants grow happily in the rose beds. A tall viburnum shrub, full of round, white flowers, is striking. The fuchsias are almost ready to bloom, as are the Inca lilies, and her yellow irises are beautiful.
Entering the shady garden is like being in another world, quiet and cool. Sitting on a bench overlooking the pond, I listen to sounds of the garden, alive with insects and birds and the water running past.
“They tell you to encourage wildlife in your garden, but do they know the problems you have,” says Gay wryly. “The ducks pinch all the tadpoles and the pot-bellied pig is both clever and destructive. The cats love the freshly turned flower beds; and the dogs chase the cats.”
I can tell however that she delights in her garden and all its creatures. She has banned the ducks from this pond because of their voracious appetite for tadpoles which wiped out all her frogs, and created “toad restaurants” – areas under a spotlight – for the frogs to feast at night. There’s a mongoose which visits, and an otter in the dam near the pond where the ducks now live. And no pesticides means there are plenty of the spiders she loves.
It’s a challenge, she says “but I don’t spray, although we are allowed to use neem, but that kills everything. And we can use copper for black spot.”
The garden was started by her mother when her parents moved to Elgin in 1965. But when Gay took over, she extended it, building terraces. As she got older, she quips, the rocks became smaller. And then about seven years ago she decided to make a feature of the marshy area where the old pond had silted up.
In a short time she’s created a wonderful shady garden under the giant willows, with lots of interest: tall tree ferns, arums along the waterway, cannas and irises, primula and hellebores. Water runs down the high rock face creating a waterfall; there’s a wooden bridge; and the rocks are covered in greenery.
The large pond has what looks like a crystal ball in it – a water feature Gay saw at the Chelsea Flower Show. Eventually she found a large round aquarium and made the water feature herself.
The garden path leads you upwards to the sunny garden, and as you climb up a clump of pale yellow clivias makes a beautiful show. The rockery is abundant with flowers and plants, including nasturtiums, geraniums, pelargoniums, a cerise azalea and a white lavender. All over the garden there are clumps of dark peach tritonias, an indigenous bulb, and clusters of irises.
The retaining wall along the driveway has a mass of flowers – geranium incanum, California poppies, daisies.
Gay also has a collection of pots leading to her front door, with beautiful clematis; a fuchsia with the tiniest flowers, beloved by the sunbirds; a succulent that smells of spices. It’s a pleasure being in Gay’s garden, as it reflects her warmth.
* Elgin Open Gardens takes place this weekend and next from 10am to 5pm. There will be 23 open gardens in the Elgin, Vyeboom and Bot River areas. For details go to www.elginopengardens.co.za. - Cape Argus