Classical
An elegant, mediterranean garden situated in the leafy suburbs of Bishopscourt.
Cape Town
Tierboskloof Estate
Inspiration from nearby mountains and a purely indigenous plant palette. Planting to compliment a modern home.
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Sea Point
“A garden with stylised and detailed planting for a keen gardener” With onsite challenges of strong salt laden winds and shallow topsoil, many obsticals needed to be overcome. With some clever ground breaking solutions and the addition of decking a beautiful seaside garden was created that invites you to stay a while and enjoy the
Bishopscourt
Designed by Franchesca Watson for a young family, this garden was conceived to offset the new contemporary style of their home. A strong, yet relaxed effect was achieved using natural stone and simple, mostly local plants. Large lawns allow for active outdoor use and create a feeling of space under the overlooking buttresses of Table
High Constantia Estate
This garden was designed by Franchesca Watson and built for a couple wanting a modern garden to offset their new contemporary home. The inspiration was originally oriental, but the design eventually developed a distinct graphic feel making use of a collection of textured grasses. Photos: Mike Hall
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Plattekloof
The challenge of this design was to create a usable, attractive garden from a steeply sloped triangular piece of land. My solution was to form three platforms of lawn on different levels, which connect and respond to the sinuous, curved shapes of the architecture, leading the eye to the magnificent view of Table Mountain. Separating
Summer Planes
This garden was constructed at the time of renovation of the main house in 1998. Designed by Franchesca Watson, it has recently been updated. The “treasure” of the garden is the Italian marble coin fountain which was found on the property and repositioned in a new pond as a central feature of one of the
Southern Cross Drive
Built by a client from mainland China, a large Italianate villa at the crest of a hill is surrounded by these gardens designed by Franchesca Watson. The garden contrasts a number of stylistic influences. Photos: Mike Hall
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Old Constantia
The garden is part of an original farm, although the house is relatively new. There is a fantastic indigenous olive tree around which the main garden has been centred. The garden was designed by Franchesca Watson and has a gentle, old-fashioned colonial feel, using favourite traditional plants. Photos: Jane Mervin
Stellenberg Gardens
The gardens of this original Cape Dutch home dating from 1795 are the passion of the owner and internationally admired. Parts of the garden have been designed by Franchesca Watson.
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Constantia
The garden was designed and installed during the renovation of the property during the 1990s. The garden has fabulous mountain views and was designed by Franchesca Watson for an active young family. With large lawns on various levels and an extraordinarily large swimming pool, the design is classic and works with varying degrees of simplicity
Kenilworth
A large and predominantly shady garden with a gently curving lawn and soft underplanting. A water feature adds a focal point to the top terrace and helps anchor the space to the surrounding garden.
Steenberg Estate
This small terrace garden and deck was designed to echo the flowing lines of the golf course greens and bunkers of the greater landscape. Designer, Franchesca Watson used a collection of indigenous and ornamental grasses to border the deck against a backdrop of indigenous screening shrubs. Photos: Mike Hall
Kirstenbosch Drive
A large garden for a large family! I divided this expansive landscape up into usable terraces with low walls built from sandstone boulders unearthed during the construction of the house. In a play between formality and informality, each terrace relates back to the architecture of the house. With a full, feminine plant palette, the garden
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Lower Southern Cross Drive
This garden by designer, Mary Maurel, is characterised by generously shaped banks and terraces which make the most of a very steep slope. The curvaceous lines of the garden lead the eye to a single focal point in the form of a beautifully detailed oval pond. Photos: Mike Hall.
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Oak Avenue
The brief was to create an entrance garden in an existing expansive driveway. AS one makes one way to the front door, one transitions through 3 distinct spaces: The first, a curvilinear pathway flanked with shade planting. This connects into a central, gravel space which is anchored by water feature. Lastly, as series of linear
Herschal Walk
An old garden belonging to a house undergoing a renovation, and similarly in need of an update. The revamp of the garden had much to do about connecting the house and garden – by means of an entrance garden, a pergola, and the introduction of beds against the house. Stone walls of the driveway were
Bishopscourt Village
Large traditional garden. Crisp clipped hedges and a tranquil space and places to sit and enjoy the garden.
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Alphen
A breathtaking setting and generations of family form the backbone to this dreamy Constantia garden. Landscape Architect, Tirzah Stubbs has sensitively responded to the site with a classic design and softened with the addition of circular water features, urns and gently layered planting. The result is a beautifully conceptualised garden with a strong connection to
Upper Higgo Road
The brief for this garden was to create a wild ‘meadow’ of yellow and white flowering plants beneath a grove of existing Leopard Trees. On the third floor of a contemporary apartment complex, my solution was to make the garden functional by running white gravel pathways through the space and punctuating the garden with feature
Oak Hill
A relaxed, informal garden for a family who enjoy the outdoors and have a love of our indigenous floral kingdom. The garden has a strong 3-dimensional quality, as it was sculpted out of a previously bland gradient. An extended lawn platform adjacent to the house, connects to the lower lawn via grass embankments and curvilinear
Suzanne Ave
A traditional food garden was created around a modern central pavilion. The planting is a mixture of flowers and vegetable and provides year round colour and food for the table. Photos: Heidi Bertish
Higgo Rd, Higgovale
This project was conceived as an office in a forest. Designer Franchesca Watson has provided many layers of intricate indigenous planting, including a variety of trees that have started to engulf the architecture and to attract local wildlife. The garden features a natural swimming pool nestled between two large granite boulders. Photos: Heidi Bertish
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Silverhurst
Four years in the making, this garden grew from a single to a double plot requiring some clever design solutions, and plenty of earth-shaping to create a unified landscape. Taking inspiration from the Georgian style architecture, this garden is divided into a series of ‘outdoor rooms’, my favourite of which is the forest-walk garden. In
Higgo Road
A modern naturalistic garden with a great attention to detail. The garden needed to have a strong connection to the mountain and relates to the planting with the use of grasses and indigenous planting. One of the main features in the garden is a green wet wall inspired by the dripping faces of rock in
Fernwood
A once steeply sloping site overlooking False Bay and the Hottentots Holland Mountains has been transformed into a manicured, terraced garden that makes as much of the surrounding views as it does of the garden rooms within in. The result is a variety of outdoor living spaces from feature fairy garden to alfresco entertaining and
Constantia Ave
In a large established garden with beautiful trees, the initial request was to create a water feature in a designated spot. The brief then developed to create a gateway into the garden. One is taken up from the werf level, through a pergola, into an intermediary platform. On this level, four reflective mirror pools were
Clifton
My most challenging installation to date – this garden is literally carved from the side of a granite cliff. The features of this glamorous seaside garden include a collection of bronze & glass sculpture, a striking stairway of floated concrete slabs and a small vertical garden nestled into the granite wall of a shower garden.
