The African landscape is a confluence of organic colours, enduring textures and bold shapes. For Leon Kluge, a prominent South African landscape and garden designer, it serves as both an inspiration and a canvas.
Tucked away amid rolling hills, the town of McGregor enjoys a quiet Saturday morning. The surrounding scrubland has already begun to shimmer slightly in the heat, and movement on main street is slow.
In the centre of town, on the grounds of the local Dutch Reformed Church, a small team of people are toiling in the morning sun. Using bundles of branches and the occasional piece of wire, they are creating plaited vines that reach up to several metres in length.
Among them is Leon Kluge, a prominent South African landscape and garden designer. He is wearing a slightly battered broad-brimmed hat, red gardening gloves and an expression of intense focus. He guides the team through the construction of a distinct landscape using stones, sticks and earth.
Leon Kluge, a prominent South African landscape and garden designer, is known for using African plants and landscapes as the inspiration for his unconventional designs. PHOTO: Supplied/Leon Kluge
“The stones are these little koppies that you see here,” says Kluge, gesturing first to the stone walls that the team has built and then to the hills that surround McGregor. “And then the vines represent that organic flow of the wind that goes over the koppies.”
There is little green to be seen on site. At this stage in the process, the rocks are bare and the sticks are lifeless. The sunbaked earth appears ill-suited to support life, but do not be deceived.
This is the beginning of Leon Kluge’s latest garden.
The secret life of garden shows
Growing up, Kluge was surrounded by plant life. His grandfather was the curator of the Betty’s Bay Botanical Garden, and his father held the same position for the Lowveld National Botanical Garden, according to an article by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) in 2018.
Kluge studied horticulture and landscape design in Israel, and graduated in 2002. “I think studying abroad was important to broaden that horizon,” says Kluge. “If you grow up in a space, you think you might know everything there is to know, but you don’t. You need to go and explore.”
Leon Kluge uses a pair of secateurs to neaten the plaited branches that form the foundation of a community garden he is building in the town of McGregor. PHOTO: Tamsin Metelerkamp
Currently, Kluge is the head designer of his own company, Leon Kluge Garden Design. Although the company is based in Cape Town, Kluge has clients all over the world. When he is not working on gardens for private clients, an enormous amount of Kluge’s time is devoted to the creation of show gardens.
“[Show gardens] are runways for plants and design,” explains Kluge. “It isn’t just a garden show. That is our runway platform, like they do […] on the strips where the models walk.”
If garden shows are runways, Kluge is South Africa’s very own Versace. In 2013, Kluge represented Africa at the Gardening World Cup in Nagasaki, Japan, and won gold in the home garden category, as well as the best on show prize. He won overall best in show at the Singapore Garden Festival in 2018, and grand gold at the Shenzhen International Garden Show in China in 2021.
“We need to break the box every time we do something,” says Kluge on his approach to garden shows. “It can just be an element…it can be textures that we use together, or a different way of using water.”
The show that holds the greatest significance — and involves the most pressure — is the Chelsea Flower Show in London, according to Kluge.
“It’s not my name on it, it’s South Africa’s name on that board at the [Chelsea Flower] show,” says Kluge. “I don’t sleep for those two weeks, let me tell you. It’s just not worth it.”
The team that won gold for the South African exhibit at the 2019 Chelsea Flower Show in London was led by Leon Kluge. PHOTO: Supplied/Leon Kluge
Kluge has been involved with the SANBI Kirstenbosch-South Africa Chelsea Flower Show team for over 10 years. He took over as head of the design and construction team for the event in 2018, according to an announcement on the SANBI website in 2018.
“When I do the Chelsea Flower Show, we take everything from South Africa to London…so from the sticks, to the stones, to the soil,” says Kluge. “It’s a lot of paperwork. Each plant needs to be phytosanitary and signed off.”
Preparation for the competition takes around a year, and last-minute complications are not uncommon, says Kluge. In the lead up to the 2019 competition, for example, overbooking on the flight to London resulted in the team’s materials being delayed in Cape Town. They were left with only three days to construct their garden.
In light of such incidents, Kluge has learned to plan for every eventuality. “I overcompensate with a lot of my flowers. I have to order a lot more in case one does not arrive or one breaks, […] or one has a gogga. And then when we’re at the show, we work. I am very particular with my volunteers.”
Kluge’s Kirstenbosch-South Africa teams have won gold at the last two Chelsea Flower Show exhibitions, which took place in 2018 and 2019, according to the SANBI website.
The influence of African landscapes
The show gardens that Kluge creates are known for their organic structures and African motifs. The uniqueness of African landscapes and cultures is something Kluge aims to capture in his work.
“I love our patterns, our organic colours. [African] colours are in the cultures, not in the plants. African plants are not very brightly coloured,” says Kluge, gesturing to the fynbos-covered McGregor hills once more. “When you see Africa, you see grass…you see very prominent, odd-looking trees, rocks and succulents. Bold, architectural shapes that pop through it…through this softness. That’s how I envisage Africa.”
Leon Kluge aims to capture the uniqueness of African landscapes and cultures in his work as a landscape and garden designer. PHOTO: Supplied/Leon Kluge
Kluge compares the traditional European style of gardening, with its exact borders and pretty flowers, to the delicate China you might find in a person’s house. “You don’t want to touch — it’s beautiful, but it’s not comfortable.”
African landscapes evoke different emotions, according to Kluge. “It’s so unique. There’s nothing else in the gardening world that remotely resembles that…I don’t know, it’s kind of a warmth to the garden. There’s much more of a human element.”
Gardens are not simply about colour, but also about texture, explains Kluge. Flowers tend to come and go with the seasons, but textures sustain the mood of a landscape throughout the year.
“I think what he’s realised when he’s done these shows is he’s got a unique […] voice to show the world, and that it’s from this African perspective,” says Tristan Woudberg, a landscape artist with Leon Kluge Garden Design, on Kluge’s style of gardening. He is sitting in the shadow of the church, taking a break from the construction of the McGregor garden.
With the help of a team of McGregor locals, Leon Kluge (left) and Tristan Woudberg (right) construct the foundations of the Windblown community garden. PHOTO: Tamsin Metelerkamp
“That’s what makes working with Leon a bit different from working with anyone else…the emphasis on being creative,” continues Woudberg. “He’s got a way of selling the design, and having so much faith in the design, that in the end it always works out.”
Biodiversity captured in a community garden
Biodiversity plays an important role in Kluge’s gardens, and is something he strives to preserve. According to Kluge, an important step in preserving South Africa’s natural landscape is creating a greater awareness of plants in local communities.
This was a part of the motivation behind the creation of Leon Kluge Plant Safaris, an eight-part series that aired on the People’s Weather Channel from 1 March, says Kluge. In the series, Kluge explores some uniquely South African plant species in the fynbos biome.
“We did a lot of filming on this little road from McGregor going up here to the mountain passes,” says Kluge. “We looked for things…interesting things. Some things are very pretty, but the story is not that interesting. You do need a bit of a story.”
The creation of Leon Kluge Plant Safaris, an eight-part series which aired on the People’s Weather Channel from 1 March, took place between October and December of 2021. In the series, Leon Kluge explores some uniquely South African plant species in the fynbos biome. PHOTO: Supplied/Leon Kluge
It was around this time that Kluge became involved with the McGregor gardening community, according to Heidi Muller, founder of McGregor Magic, which is a local gardening initiative that evolved from the gardening festival of the same name.
“We first got involved with Leon when he offered to do some plant safaris in the area as content for McGregor Magic, our local festival,” says Muller. “And he, on the back of that, very kindly offered to design a garden for the village.” Muller is part of the team of McGregor locals who are assisting Kluge in building the foundations of the garden.
The community garden will cultivate awareness of the unique floral landscape in McGregor, says Kluge.
The foundation of the Windblown community garden in McGregor has been constructed using stones, branches and earth. PHOTO: Tamsin Metelerkamp
“This is the transition area — which is very unique, there’s not many of them — between fynbos and desert,” explains Kluge. “This is where they interact and touch one another, right here. And in those little spaces, you have extremely unique plants.”
Kluge is donating his time and expertise for the project, which he has named Windblown as a tribute to the vital role that the wind plays in pollinating plant life in the region. The walls of the garden form five chambers, each of which will contain a different theme of local plants. The flow of plaited branches over the walls represents the movement of wind across McGregor’s hills.
“It’s a garden that doesn’t need any extra water or care. It will look after itself,” says Kluge. “And just show, in a micro-setting, what they have around them.”
Using bundles of branches and pieces of wire, the team working on the Windblown community garden creates long vines that are intended to represent the movement of wind over the hills of McGregor. PHOTO: Tamsin Metelerkamp