0 of 6
The Hogsback Open Gardens returns for its second round of spring blooms, and this time it’s for the roses.
The first weekend for the azaleas during October, which were noted as having their best blooms in 20 years, had 520 visitors.
From November 7 to 10, the final week will include a full programme of activities in the village, including a parkrun at The Edge, a three-course dinner with wine pairings at Red Clay Café with The Taste Room, and various guided tours through the sprawling gardens.
All funds raised are put back into the upkeep of the roads and the town’s beloved Arboretum, for those who want an outdoor experience, bring a picnic and sit beneath its forest trees.
Once visitors have purchased their tickets, they will receive a map for self-guided tours of the sprawling grounds and can explore nine open residential gardens.
Hogsback Garden Club chair and event organiser Gloria Robinson, 64, said many garden lovers paired their trip to the village with the Bedford Country Gardens event from November 8 to 10.
Robinson said: “Garden enthusiasts often combine a trip to Bedford and Hogsback. The November dates are designed to showcase a myriad spring flowers, most notably mass plantings of roses. Mistlea Garden will be a rose lovers’ paradise with more than 2,000 roses in bloom on display.
“Roses grow well in Hogsback since they like the acidic soil and the good rains. The former chair of our Garden Club, Monika Hof, started a rose nursery in 2019 as the only franchisee of Ludwig’s Roses in the Eastern Cape. Thus we all had easy access to a phenomenal array of roses. Once we discovered how hardy and happy they are, we were hooked!
“Roses do need a lot of care but are rewarding to grow, flowering from November till we prune them in July.
“All the gardens will still be phenomenal since their beauty is not determined by the flowers only, but by their spatial splendour. There will be some rhododendrons still in bloom too.”
Robinson recommended that the most colourful gardens will be:
• Mistlea for its roses, irises and a spectacular view.
• Shalom: “A vast country garden, for the first time on show and the only garden that was created by its current owners, started in 2010, we are excited to have it on show!”
• Moonshine: “It will be super colourful as the owner, Carol Nieth is the most knowledgeable and experienced gardener among us and has created an ever-flowering cottage garden.”
• Little Timbers: “The pond will be very romantic looking with all the water plants in bloom and a rose garden about the house.”
Robinson recommended visitors wear comfortable shoes and prepare for “all four seasons in one day”.
“See the weather forecast but always be prepared, bring a sun hat, umbrella, warm jacket and water bottle.”
Dispatch visited the Open Gardens in October, which were experiencing the best azalea bloom in 20 years.
The road winding up the hill is still tricky, potholes and abandoned fixes only worsened by time, but it is not undrivable. White lilies lined the sides, teasing of what waited ahead.
A cold snap before and the heat meant that many shrubs in the private gardens had burst into a rainbow of colour at the same time — lilacs, hues of pink, blood orange, bright red, canary yellow or stark white — walking through the gardens feels as though you have Mary Poppins-ed yourself into a Monet painting.
Acid soil-loving plants camellias, magnolias, dogwoods, rhododendrons and azaleas were a vision.
They are vast, don’t expect to visit more than three in a morning, and even that is pushing it. Give yourself time to sit on a bench, or explore a different fork in the split pathways.
You come for the flowers, but they are not the only beauty. Vibrant green moss grows on most walls, or floors, or bark of tall ancient trees.
Find hidden mushrooms sprouting underneath fallen trees, watch the bees pop from flower to flower, the constant hum of millions of wings matched by the calls of birds.
The Arboretum is delightful, a calm walk through but its forest pathways, over bridges and babbling brooks a loving blend of nature’s growth and tended with love by its dedicated garden club.
A thunderstorm rumbled overheard throughout the morning, finally breaking when walking through the Arboretum. Schoolchildren screamed in laughter as they ran back to their school bus.
Frogs lept out underfoot into babbling brooks, small plaques in memoriam to loved ones and shiny brass cenotaphs to those lost were placed together by the stream.
The deluge pelted the garden, but under the forest canopy and dry under a Johnson’s work jacket, I watched a troop of baboons sitting up in the branches, the male keeping a watchful eye on the only visitor basking in the chaos of the storm.
Tickets for the Hogsback Open Gardens fundraiser are R150, and free for children under 15, available at the Edge Mountain Retreat reception on the day. Tickets grant access to all gardens for the duration of visitors’ stay.
DispatchLIVE
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.