Room to GROW

A considered Constantia garden was complete – until it wasn't. The acquisition of the plot next door turned a finished design into something more layered and quietly expansive

- text HEIDI BERTISH photographs ELSA YOUNG

the original garden was meant to be the whole story.

Designed by Carrie Latimer on a 1 515-square metre site in Constantia, it was a self-contained space: structured terraces, a lawn and a pool bordered by thoughtful planting. At its centre stood a romantic rose arch by architect Wynand Wilsenach, and a single Liquidambar tree that had been installed with a crane and no small amount of spectacle.

Then it all changed. Eighteen months in, the neighbouring property came up for sale. The owners purchased it, an additional 1 350 square metres of old-style planting, deep beds of fuchsias and a stately oak that seemed to have presided over the landscape for decades. Suddenly, the garden was only half of something larger.

What followed was less a redesign than a diplomatic merger. How could two very different garden personalities be combined — one considered and architectural, the other lush, slightly wild, full of fuchsias and memory — without flattening either?