Make your garden a focal point

With spring arriving in our gardens and wonderful aromas filling the air, perhaps you, too, feel the urge to get your hands dirty and start gardening. You may be planning to landscape new areas in your garden or re-do old ones, so this is the ideal time to introduce some focus points on your property and create statement pieces.

One or more focal points in the garden add not only an interesting atmosphere, but also provide detail to draw one’s eyes and let them rest on something beautiful.

Consider drawing attention to a certain spot viewed from, for instance, the lounge window. You could choose either a water feature, plants with formal lines or favourite colours, or an oddity like the rusted nose of grandfather’s old Ford.

One can also distract the eye from a bad-looking area, unsightly wall, swimming pool pump station, or down pipes from the roof, by drawing attention away from the unappealing spots. Make your statement using plants or objects that will provide a wow-effect. Beautiful focus plants that make a statement are plentiful and you may uncover your favourites at your local nursery. Here are some pointers:

• Large Beaucarnea recurvata or the ponytail palm for a semi-dry garden.
• Aloe barbareae or tree aloe makes a beautiful statement in either dry or normal gardens.
• Multi-stemmed yuccas may also do the trick, especially when finely styled.
• Large Syagrys or queen palms, Trachycarpus, Chinese fan palm, Dypsus decaryii, triangular palm, or big Phoenix roebelinii, small wild date palms, will all make a stunning statement when used alone or in a group of uneven quantities.
• Depending on the size of the garden, some trees e.g., Acacia xanthophloea or fever tree speaks for itself.

Statues or features:

• Wall features, e.g., stone cladding, decorative wall units, old door, or a mirror.
• Large feature pots
• Statues
• Water features

With these items, one would need filler plants to soften the look or display them in combination with a focus plant from the selection above.

Suitable light fixtures, complementing your focus area or focal point, will provide an even more effective statement at night-time. When installing garden lighting, you have the option of either solar or electric lights. Be aware not to blind your vision through overexposure, but to rather highlight the statement piece by directing the spotlight correctly or otherwise go for soft sidelights, creating a more romantic atmosphere.

Whatever you use to create your statement, be bold and not skimpy. Go big or go home.

Eugene le Roux



AgriTurf: Marco de Wet
Cell: 081 600 9584



Pupkewitz Megabuild:
Eugene le Roux
Horticulturist
Cell: 081 124 6965