The Garden • Introduction The garden at Brenthurst Estate is rated as one of the finest in South Africa and can certainly be placed among the great gardens of the world. Its history goes back to the turn of the last century, when the elegant gabled house, now known as Brenthurst, was built for Drummond Chaplin by Sir Herbert Baker. The dramatic Cape Dutch gables are delicately balanced against a Gauteng kopje, and the house is now set amid a range of formal, informal and wild gardens. The garden was redesigned by the doyenne of South African landscape architects Miss Joane Pim. She was commissioned by Harry and Bridget Oppenheimer in 1959 to redesign the garden. It remains to this day basically as she intended. After her death in 1974 the garden continued to evolve being guided by the then Head Gardener, Dick Scott, assisted by Beth Still. After the death of Harry Oppenheimer in 2000, Strilli Oppenheimer, his daughter in law, took over the responsibility for the garden together with Dawid Klopper; the new Head Gardener. She has a clear vision of how the garden should develop. As she puts it ”I would certainly not expect or try to stick rigidly to Joane Pim’s plan of Brenthurst, but would hope that if she could look at what is being done she would see her influence, where I am coming from, and approve of where I plan to go. Gardens evolve over time and reflect the relationship of the people that work in them. Dawid and I believe in working with nature rather than fighting it or imposing our ‘perfect picture’upon it’. Strilli, with Dawid Klopper who comes with a Kirstenbosch background and a great team of gardeners, have embarked on a programme to return the garden to Joane Pim’s spirit adhering at all times to strictly organic principles and a natural style of planting. Strilli believes that new insights have brought about a shift in our relationship with nature and our approach to gardening: ’Your eye has to adjust. Plants that were once considered to be weeds now belong in the picture. We don’t battle with plants and we don’t immediately remove dead branches nor seed heads and we don’t mind plants being eaten nor showing their age. I have a wonderful Japanese bronze of a sweet chestnut and one of the leaves has been eaten. Without that leaf, which is perfectly realistic, it would not be as beautiful as it is. I think that is how one’s eye has to re-relate. Why should it be acceptable and perfect in the bronze but not acceptable and perfect when it’s growing?’ The natural style of gardening is inspired by the wild and the garden is planted as a balanced eco-system where nature becomes the gardening partner, rather than an opponent. The garden is now a haven for wildlife with a steady increase in the diversity of life which calls Brenthurst home. This includes creatures such as mongooses, small rodents, frogs, reptiles, birds including raptors and many insects; also exotics such as vulturine guinea fowl and peacocks which have discovered the beautiful garden where they are welcomed along with exotic plants and other indigenous and endemics. The garden at Brenthurst has many different aspects with individual gardens, which have been expertly blended into a harmonious whole.