In the Press
Dream Garden
A Phoenix Rises
Like C. S. Lewis's Narnia, this garden is filled with magic and soul. It is a place where mortals can enter to experience a world filled with colour, form, and hidden delights.
Connall Oosterbroek — Text & Photography
A Journey of Growth and Resilience at Narnia
Owned by Richard and Stella Sohn, this garden blends the formal elegance of structured beds with the wild whimsy of a rambling country haven, reflecting the diversity of South African and international flora and the resilience of the human spirit. When Richard purchased the land in 1988, it was wild slopes with pockets of pine, black wattle and gums, interspersed with fynbos and grasses. They removed alien species, kept the indigenous ones, and subdivided the land into a home/garden estate and a smallholding. Stella's passion for gardening stems from her childhood in Zimbabwe and Johannesburg, watching her family build beautiful gardens. She muddled through her own mistakes, adding beds and features, scattering seeds, filling wheelbarrows and pots with delights.
Pull quote: "It was like armageddon." — Stella Sohn. In June 2017, while the Sohns were on a family RV trip in Canada, wildfires tore through Knysna. "We lost everything we owned, including our cars. Our house sitters thankfully got the staff and dogs off the property and to safety. We returned two days later to utter devastation and nowhere to live." They were insured, revived the old bed layouts, moved the new house slightly west, and repurposed two fallen pine trunks to demarcate pathways and form a feature with fiddlewood trees.
The rockery, built from stones salvaged from the old house site, is Stella's favourite part of the garden now, filled with irises, gaura, spekboom, foxgloves, artichokes, Japanese anemones and succulents — "whatever survived the first year went in." Richard had a stone mason build a dry stack wall below it, and they run a compost system from lawn cuttings, riding-school manure and kitchen waste.
The Pool Garden
Indigenous ericas, proteas, pincushions, arums, giant strelitzias and tree aloes, with a whimsical wire sculpture of a woman diving into the pool.
The Herb Garden
Surrounds a fish pond filled with tilapia; lettuce, oregano, thyme, strawberries, spring onions, rosemary, parsley and sage; home to a wire statue of Mr Tumnus reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe on a bench above the pond.
The Old Driveway Bed & The Lookout Bed
Hardy plumbago, fynbos, pincushions and rambling echeveria; the Lookout Bed faces the Knysna Heads with hydrangeas, ginger plants, strelitzias, agapanthus, tritonias, shasta daisies, irises and iceberg roses.
The Memorial Garden
Beside the small dam, a wire angel underplanted with 'Sheena's Gold', remembering lives lost in the Knysna fires; old cast iron baths brim with bulbs and seedlings, and a bench offers quiet reflection.
The Rose Garden
Pull quote: "We cut the black stalks to the ground and said goodbye. A month later, practically every single rose was sprouting leaves from the ground!" — Stella Sohn. Thought lost to the flames, nearly every rose bush resprouted, defying the usual rules; the survival story even featured in an international rose conference newsletter.
Stella calls her garden a refuge, wandering it with a cup of tea morning and evening. They've hosted garden clubs, rose societies and charity open days, and this year are inviting local retirement-home residents for a wander and tea. The Sohns rebuilt Narnia Guest House on the property, the Lookout unit and the Poolhouse, with fireplaces, braais and views of the heads, lagoon, river and mountains. "In every season, there's something new. Surprises, memories, resilience; it's all here." — Stella Sohn. Credit line: Narnia Guest House, for direct booking specials visit www.narnia.co.za or call Stella on 083 325 2581. Feature originally published in The Gardener magazine, by Connall Oosterbroek, text and photography.
