Photographs Warren Heath
Production Sven Alberding
Text Robyn Alexander
In the Spice House – a custom-built greenhouse at Babylonstoren estate near Cape Town – master gardener Gundula Deutschländer and her team have created a verdant paradise dedicated to showcasing the many charms of spice-bearing plants.
It’s just after 8 am at Babylonstoren, a destination wine and guest farm with a relatively new but already world-renowned garden. The estate is a short drive from central Cape Town, and there’s bustle and activity everywhere this morning – as there always is on a working farm. It’s autumn, and the first of the bountiful harvest of pumpkins is being picked and processed, destined for use in Babylonstoren’s restaurants and via its farm shop, both in situ and online.
However, inside one of the garden team’s latest projects – the Spice House – all is calm and quiet. As we await master gardener Gundula Deutschländer, there is some time to take in the details of the greenhouse itself: classic cast metal doors, opaque glass panels, a large slab of stone fashioned into a striking table with a central water runnel and edged with wooden benches; and a slatted wooden floor raised above a pool of water populated with fish that regularly swim up into the two glass tanks placed at either end of the wooden deck. It’s pleasantly warm and humid, and the air is redolent with the subtle scents of humus-filled soil and the variety of lush tropical plants that fill the space.
Into this beautiful, tranquil space comes Gundula, who – rather like the contents of the greenhouse – glows with a gentle yet resilient energy. She is the epitome of the softly-spoken gardener who exudes subtle strength. Having worked at Babylonstoren for 15 years as the farm’s master gardener, Gundula has played a part in all of the estate’s innovative gardening efforts, and the Spice House is the latest of these.
She explains that the project originated from creating a space on the farm that served as a reminder of the Cape of Good Hope’s history as a place through which so many precious spices once passed from east to west. It’s a way of paying tribute to the spices themselves and those who had “an obsession with everything exotic, from sugar to paper”, as Gundula puts it. As the Western Cape has a dry, Mediterranean-style climate, doing this necessitated building a greenhouse for the spice plants, which are almost invariably subtropical or tropical in origin – requiring those same conditions to be replicated for them to thrive.
What’s more, most of these plants, which range from black pepper to galangal, tamarind and cardamom, are far from easy to come by in South Africa. Gundula says some were found via connections at botanical gardens in Durban and other subtropical parts of the country, adding that her fellow Babylonstoren botanist, Ernst van Jaarsveld, was a great help. International suppliers had to be tapped, and a special journey to Zanzibar to source plants was undertaken, too.
In other words, like every beautiful garden, the Spice House has taken considerable effort – and quite a lot of time – to create. As Gundula relates, it has taught those who tend to it all kinds of unexpected lessons.
Creating a unique and memorable experience for visitors to the farm is very much part of Babylonstoren’s mission. “That’s the magnificence of working here,” Gundula says. “We are able, as our work, to share in such different ways. Not only visually, but also through giving people an experience they can make their own – like creating a spiced infusion from freshly picked plants for somebody and sharing that.”
Most of the gardens at Babylonstoren, by deliberate intent, grow only edible and medicinal plants. The Spice House currently includes black pepper, chillies, vanilla, turmeric, ginger, galangal, tamarind, cacao, cardamom, bananas, papayas, curry leaves and a butterfly pea plant – but also features a sacred fig (Ficus religiosa) has been grown from a cutting taken from the original and legendary tree under which the Buddha sat, as well as a plethora of ferns, some orchids, and bold clumps of epiphytic Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides).
Asked about the overall meaning of being a gardener, Gundula stresses that “over and again, it’s a humbling experience, no matter what you do”. She’s one of the most knowledgeable and experienced gardeners in South Africa and works within a large team, but she recognises that much of the time, for many of us with an interest in plants, “gardening is an isolated, almost insular occupation, but you’re continuously aware that you have the greater role beyond” – a role that is about being one of those who connect with and tend the earth. With her gentle smile breaking through once again, she says: “It’s about giving yourself the time to be okay with being by yourself so that you can also be okay with being out there.”