Landscape-garden designer Leon Kluge, whose floral display won gold at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London for the second year running, recently showed off the finer points of his world-class skills at the Hazendal Wine Estate in Kuils River.
He has been tasked by the estate with revamping its gardens.
This year’s Chelsea display was a recreation of his award winning work done for the Singapore Garden Festival. Kluge along with artist-gardener Tristan Woudberg led a team of passionate volunteers, who painstakingly prepared and arranged up to 25 000 stems of fynbos.
The exhibit was inspired by South Africa’s two mighty oceans, the Indian and Atlantic, which have given rise to a multitude of habitats, from the fynbos of the Cape to the more subtropical greenery of KwaZulu-Natal.
A dramatic canyon dominated the design, which cut through a mountain of proteas to reveal multiple waterfalls and cliffs. The Storms River mouth, located on the border of the Western and Eastern Cape, inspired a ravine with its dramatic living cliff.
The Grootbos Private Nature Reserve, Hazendal Wine Estate and the Rupert Nature Foundation and Southern Sun sponsored this year’s display.
President and chairperson of the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Keith Weed CBE presented the Franschhoek-based Kluge and his team with the Lawrence Medal, awarded to the best floral exhibition over all RHS shows throughout a calendar year for their display, a first for SA.
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