Practice Makes Perfect

This Constantia Hills garden cleverly combines formal French and wild indigenous styles

- Marianne Alexander

Sheila Boardman is more than just a talented gardener. She has a remarkable eye for perspective and spent hours working on the design of their new garden on the old Soetvlei farm in Constantia Hills.

Additional help came from landscape architect Patrick Watson, who designed the indigenous parts of the garden and oversaw the merging of the wilder elements with the more formal areas. Sheila also has a penchant for formal French gardens and is adept at using allées to lead the eye through the garden and frame the extraordinary vistas.

Different levels and hedging add interest and compartmentalise the garden. For the hedges, Sheila used plumbago, Solanum ‘Deep Purple’, escallonia, Searsia crenata (previously known as Rhus crenata), Freylinia tropica and myrtle.