Ivor Markman

 

When Ron Froud, past manager of the gardens of the City of Lon­don, decided to visit the Eastern Cape towns of Bedford and Addo a few weeks ago, he imagined finding a very hot and barren African landscape.

When he reached his destina­tion and saw the magnificent garden at Maasstrom, one of the Bedford farms where he was staying over, he was over­whelmed by the sight of the lush green oasis that greeted him.

"I thought the gardens would be more desert-like," he said.

"You go to the fence and it's completely barren and rough on the outside.

“Yet inside you've got this lovely green oasis of a garden. It's fantastic."

One year before he retired in 2001, Froud was made a Member of the Order of the British Em­pire (MBE) in recognition of his services to the City of London and horticulture.

"I was the manager of the city gardens in central London.

“We used to look after anything that was green - the trees, the grass, and the flower beds," he said.

When the law changed, the maintenance of the park was sourced out to private compa­nies.

Many former staff mem­bers left to work with these companies and Froud found himself supervis­ing them.

He was in charge of decorat­ing London's Guildhall - the town hall of the City of London­ as well as Mansion House, the offi­cial residence of the Lord Mayor.

These venues are used to entertain foreign heads of state visiting England.

His team would lavishly dec­orate the walkways and stairs and create huge flower displays at each end of the hall.

"Sometimes we did the (visit­ing country's) flags in flowers on the balcony .

The flags (were made up of) cut flowers, carna­tions or something like that."

Froud and his team were responsible for all the flower beds in City of London properties and other places as well, including Bunhill Fields cemetery, a mas­sive cemetery in north London.

The name apparently comes from "Bone Hill" as, in 1549, cart-loads of human bones were taken there to make space in St Paul's charnel-house for new in­ternments.

The remains of the bones were simply deposited on the field and covered with a thin layer of soil.

Many famous people, such as John Bunyan, the author of Pil­grim's Progress, Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, and William Blake, the famous painter, engraver, poet and mys­tic, lie buried there.

Thomas Pringle, an 1820 British Settler who settled on the farm Eildon in the Baviaans River Valley and one of the men respon­sible for the Freedom of the Press in South Africa, was also buried in this graveyard in 1834.

In 1971, when Bunhill Fields was under Froud's jurisdiction, instructions came through to exhume his body.

"I didn't know about the person at the time. I didn't know where the body was go­ing," he said.

Thirty-six years after the exhumation, he visited Pringle's new grave in the Scottish Settlers' Memorial Church in the Baviaans River Valley.

"Since I have been in South Africa, I've realised it (Pringle's remains) came back to the place and people I'm visiting.

“It's an extraordinary story," he said.

Froud, who is in South Africa as a member of Britain's Wor­shipful Company of Gardeners, was most impressed with the way Nellie van Aardt of the farm Baviaanskrantz dealt with gar­dening problems on her farm.

"There is no soil and they've imported soil from the ant heaps to cover their garden."

The Van Nickerks's garden, on nearby farm Albertvale, "was more like an English country garden," he said.

Kim van Niekerk, who has a nursery specialising in Heritage roses, has a garden with a for­mal pottager, herb garden, per­gola and pond, while Ola van Niekerk has a Victorian gazebo under-planted with roses.

"The roses here are absolute­ly superb.

“They don't have any black spot like we have in Eng­land.

“Cavers B&B (on the out­skirts of Bedford) has a beauti­ful garden with some lovely planting.

“It was well maintained and completely isolated.

"The plant varieties and species (in the various gardens) are very, very good," he said.

"Some of them are similar be­cause the ladies swop their plants and cuttings."

The wide variety of plants available in South Africa would not grow in England except in greenhouses.

"We have South African flow­ers in pots (which) we use in floor displays and that sort of thing.

“We couldn't plant them in our gardens because it's too wet and cold in winter," he said.

Froud and his fellow visitors were able to help the Eastern Cape gardeners resolve a few of their plant problems.

"They're watering with a certain type of water.

“We noticed it's making the leaves go yellow.

“There's a manganese deficiency that, caused that. They didn't know so a couple of us told them."

Frond said he picked up a few ideas in Bedford and particular­ly liked the way the paving was done.

"This trip has given me a bit of an appetite and I hope to come back again sometime."