Rustenberg Gardens - Stellenbosch

Very distinctly laid out in rooms. Beautiful herbaceous borders set around rectangular lawns. A gazebo covered in fantastic pink roses led to another rectangular area, a large fish pond in the middle was full of colourful, large coia carp, surrounded by lawn with herbaceous borders at either end. Each rectangle is enclosed within low walls with steps leading to other rectangles, the rooms, at differing levels. There are rose covered walkways also leading to other areas.

Interspersed in the borders were tall wooden structures, whose technical name escapes me, supporting climbing roses in a deep magenta colour.

In another area was a very unusual maze. It was completely flat and it was the colour of the bricks that were set into the ground that defined the walk and the maze. As is normal with mazes they lead you to the centre of the maze eventually and then back out. Somehow it seemed that the path in and the path out were completely different as you never seemed to bump into someone going the other way. This was the fourth and last room in the garden.

Most of the flowers I had seen before and were English like. All the seasons, with exception of Spring seemed to have merged into one.

Of course we did a tasting and our notes on that can be found on another post. Our photos can be found on www.picasaweb.google.co.uk/idurrelmeister and the the Rustenberg website is http://www.rustenberg.co.za/ .