Arderne Gardens – greenery in the midst of Claremont

Arderne Gardens

Say 'Main Road, Claremont' and the pic­ture most people con­jure up def­in­itely doesn't include green­ery. It's a bust­ling hub­bub of activ­ity, the air con­sist­ently rent with the hoot­ing of taxis soli­cit­ing busi­ness, and the irate response of drivers look­ing for park­ing. But in the midst of all of this is Arderne Gardens, the garden of wed­dings, a 4.5 hec­tare garden filled with some 300 incred­ible trees that is just cry­ing out for use ...

This garden star­ted life as Ralph Henry Arderne's 'The Hill' (also known as 'Arderne Dorp') where the Arderne fam­ily set out to cre­ate a garden rep­res­ent­ing all of the flora of the world, which goes a long way to explain the inclu­sion of cedars of Lebanon, Queensland kauris (these trees have an ancient blood­line belong­ing to a fam­ily of tree that once covered the super con­tin­ent Gondwanaland), Australian flame trees and a gar­gan­tuan Moreton bay fig tree, the roots of which provide the hills and vales of a magical val­ley for little ones clam­ber­ing over its expanse.

Weekends bring the gar­dens to life as the tra­di­tion for wed­ding pho­to­graphs here  con­tin­ues. It's a picture-perfect garden with ponds filled with fish and ducks, secluded shady benches, and the con­stant chat­ter of birds. Of course, it's also fre­quen­ted by the odd shady char­ac­ter, but this shouldn't pre­vent its being used more fre­quently by Capetonians.

We were at Arderne Gardens on a Saturday morn­ing, largely to catch sight of any bridal party pre­pared to brave the heat, which I man­aged to miss com­pletely, but also to wander the path­ways and explore the park. If you've tree-climbing chil­dren, then this is a ver­it­able para­dise! And you don't have to look over your shoulder every five minutes for fear someone will chase you away. It's a very relaxed set up and there's a feel­ing of 'live and let live' that you might not find, for instance, at Kirstenbosch.

The morn­ing was a scorcher, but the garden paths were cool, leafy and filled with the pun­gent smell of toiled earth and fra­grant blooms. There's a rather obscure Japanese garden that might work in gar­dens like the Durban Botanical Gardens, but here it's a little out of place. Nonetheless, the curved bridges over the water provide a great adven­ture for chil­dren and lovely photo moments.

To crown it all, entrance to the gar­dens is com­pletely free. A dona­tion is reques­ted, but there you go, South Africans aren't usu­ally big on giv­ing away their money, so I'm amazed that the gar­dens have man­aged to con­tinue so pret­tily. The whole garden is fenced in, and, when the secur­ity guards aren't catch­ing a snooze on a wel­come bench, they're sta­tioned around the gar­dens and at the entrance to make you feel more secure.

The Ardernes, as with many fam­il­ies in Cape Town dur­ing the mar­ket crash in 1904 (not to be con­fused with the major world stock crash in 1929), lost most of the for­tune and, des­pite the fact that they had man­aged the garden across two, going on three, gen­er­a­tions, they had to sell The Hill, and the centre of the fam­ily dis­in­teg­rated. Today there are roughly seven Ardernes in the phone book, and the garden is main­tained by the City of Cape Town together with the Friends of the Arderne Gardens.

The his­tory aside, the garden is well worth a visit. Banana and magno­lia straw­berry trees hang gently over­head a bench, whilst a fly­ing moth maple and tulip tree get my atten­tion as one of them is in flower, though which I can­not say, and smells heav­enly. An Australian flame tree towers above the reaches of the aver­age tree climber, and I snap a pic to remind me that the one in our front garden could end up being as big, given the chance.

A few people have even dared to come here with a packed pic­nic lunch and sprawl lazily on the lawns whilst time stand still for a while in the busy heart of Claremont.

Thanks to Vincent Kolbe for his input!

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