Reader garden: On the next level for an oasis of colour, fragrance and chattering birds

WHO LIVES HERE? Johan and Minki du Toit
WHERE Waterkloof, Pretoria
SIZE OF GARDEN 750m2
AGE OF CURRENT GARDEN 27 years
TYPE OF SOIL Red and rock

We live on part of a subdivided plot on which not much gardening was done before we moved here in 1996,” says Minki du Toit of Pretoria.

It had a few trees such as the indigenous weeping boer-bean (Schotia brachypetala), two white stinkwoods (Celtis africana) – which unfortunately have since died of a fungal disease – and a very large tree which just fell over one day with a huge thud,” she recalls.