Are you having a staycation this summer? Yes, staying at home and enjoying all the comforts and environments your home has to offer. With soaring oil prices, foods prices, electricity, interest rate hikes and the escalating cost of home loans, many of us are seeing the benefit of staying at home this summer and having a 'staycation'.

Time to look at your garden as an extension of your home and as such, should reflect the personality of you and your house.

For example, houses with angular architecture such Georgian houses suit more formal, structured gardens. On the other hand, rambling thatch houses seem more at home with a more relaxed garden style.

For your summer 'staycation' take a look at your garden and how you can transform it into the garden of your dreams.

Types of gardens and their characteristics:

African-chic garden

Although we have a huge variety of indigenous tropical plants, an indigenous African garden tends towards beds filled with beautiful flowering aloes, strelitzias and veld grasses, creating that bushveld feel.

Make it a garden that will attract and encourage interesting species like birds, insects, frogs, hedgehogs, lizards and butterflies.

Must-haves for African-chic:

The potted garden

Portable gardens for provide colour and are perfect for small gardens. Container gardening is also good for the elderly or for people with physical disabilities.

Growing plants in containers is very rewarding and instantly gratifying. Even if your space is limited to a balcony, windowsill or a handkerchief-sized courtyard, you will find endless ideas in our garden centres.

You can choose from a variety of containers — from simple terracotta pots, troughs or window boxes to ornamental urns, from wire baskets to the more unusual such as wheelbarrows and wine barrels.

Create your own desertscape, cottage garden, rooftop garden, entrance garden or a Mediterranean courtyard with containers.

Proven winners for medium to large herb containers

• Bay trees: Bay Laurel is the source of the bay leaves which are used for their flavour in cooking.
• Rosemary: The energy giving shrub with aromatic, small dark green leaves with light blue flowers from autumn through to summer.
• Lemon Verbena: A herb with the following benefits: de-stressing, anti-spasmodic, helps with digestion, and reduces fevers.
• Cooking Lime: Lime is valued both for the acidity of its juice and the floral aroma of its zest.
• Tea Tree: The oil of tea tree has beneficial medical properties and is also believed to have beneficial cosmetic properties.

The Mediterranean garden

In every good Mediterranean garden design the key ingredients are light, warmth, simplicity and relaxation.

The features of a Mediterranean garden can be diverse, but the one thing it doesn't include is anything modern, such as modern sculpture or furniture.

The predominant colours have a sun-bleached look — white or earthy shades such as terracotta and sandstone are popular. Splashes of bright colours such as brilliant blues are used for contrast. This also reminds the viewer of the brilliant blue of the Mediterranean Sea.

Container plants are popular, including window boxes with geraniums and large tubs or barrels planted with citrus or olives. Topiary and other pruning techniques can add to the formal elements of a Mediterranean garden.

Essential landscaping includes:

• Stone, concrete and ceramics.


• Wood for constructing pergolas and outdoor tables.


• Terracotta and ceramic containers.


• Water features are usually simple, often used for their cooling effect: swimming pools, fountains or ponds rather than watercourses or cascades.


• Garden ornaments are either traditional and or rustic. Examples include olive jars and traditional statues.

The Oriental garden

Oriental gardens strive to create harmony and balance, often by imitating nature but rarely through the use of symmetry in the design.

As a person moves through an Oriental garden, a series of pictures should unfold. For this reason it is important that the garden creates a sense of enclosure.

In a western garden, we think of creating the hard landscape first, then adding the plants. But in Oriental gardening, the plants and hard landscape components are thought of as inseparable. Natural components such as rock, water, wood, sand and gravel are important, but may often be used in a stylised or symbolic way.

The style of Oriental gardens has been maintained for centuries. Consequently they tend to be timeless and free of fashions and styles.

Plants that complement an Oriental garden

Azaleas: shrubs of the genus Rhododendron having showy, variously coloured flowers.

Bamboo: Often used as an accent plant and adds a fascinating element to the Oriental garden.

Nandinas: Japanese prayer plant or sacred bamboo. It is native to eastern Asia from the Himalaya east to Japan. Despite the common name, it is not a bamboo at all.

Moss: A very small flowerless plant typically growing in dense mats on trees, rocks, or moist ground.

Zantedeschia Green Goddess: South African plant widely cultivated for its green flower on long stems.