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2020 marks the 20th year of the Elgin Open Gardens! This year 8 gardens will open in the Elgin district over two weekends to benefit local charities. These are Auldearn, Fresh Woods, Lavenham, Houw Hoek Outspan, Keurbos and Sonop, The Stone Kitchen and Wildekrans. They range from large established country gardens to very young, recently planted gardens on farms and smallholdings, all in a setting of great natural beauty an hour’s drive from Cape Town.

This year, as Fresh Woods celebrates its 30th continuous year of opening, we welcome a new garden-in-progress, Sonop, which Jessie Walton has been designing and planting over some years. The garden is set on a series of contours on a steep hillside overlooking a lake, so the views are stunning. It is planted entirely with wild South African plants, with some very special varieties among them.

A number of gardens will have plants for sale, and some such as Keurbos and Fresh Woods will be offering unusual and interesting plants difficult to find elsewhere, such as Japanese maples, rhododendrons and other choice perennials, trees and shrubs. Sadly, Fairholme will not be open again but we thank Duncan and Liz Henderson for their many years of loyal support.

Covid-19: Although we hope that by November the pandemic will be mainly over, it may be that the gardens will need to take extra measures to keep people safe. These will be announced on this website and on our Instagram site.