Abigail’s Big Message: Let Your Garden Work for You (and for Nature!)

Abigail de Swardt, the Environmental Coordinator from Life Green Group who looks after Waterfall Hills, chatted to us about something called functional landscapes — basically gardens that don’t just look pretty, but actually work the way nature intended.

She explained how Waterfall Hills has been slowly shifting from those picture-perfect, highly manicured gardens to something far more sustainable and biodiverse. Think: swapping weekly-mowed, fertiliser-hungry lawns for hardy indigenous grasses that only need a trim twice a year. Bliss!

The trouble with perfect gardens?

They’re high-maintenance divas. Low plant diversity encourages weeds, which means more herbicides, more mulch, more compost, and even the wrong kind of mowing can “overgraze” the system. In contrast, functional landscapes support soil health, biodiversity, and healthier water cycles.

Abigail gave a great example: instead of a stormwater drain at Waterfall Hills, they built a bioswale — a gently sloped, planted channel that slows water down, filters it, and creates little habitat pockets. Much prettier than a concrete ditch!

And pests? Not always the villains.

Caterpillars munching your leaves may look like chaos, but they’re actually composting and feeding the whole system. Every plant and creature plays a role — it’s nature’s version of teamwork.

One of Abigail’s key points:

Nature needs disturbance.

Fire in fynbos, grazing animals snacking here and there, falling trees in forests — none of this is destruction. It’s nature’s way of resetting and rejuvenating.

How do we mimic that in our gardens?

• Mow differently and less often

• Compost unevenly

• Do selective pruning and weeding

• Leave the leaf litter (free mulch!)

• Let trees grow a bit messy

• Create habitat piles, mini-wet areas, and rocky patches

• And most importantly: give the garden seasonal rest

She encouraged us to embrace a little “messiness” — because in ecology, messy is often healthy. Indigenous gardens also mean less watering, fewer pests, lower costs, and a more dynamic seasonal show.

Her final reminder:

When we stop trying to control nature and start cooperating with it, the garden becomes more resilient, more diverse, and a lot less work.

Functional landscapes are living systems — and when we work with them, they reward us with balance and beauty.