 Photo by Una van der Spuy Old Nectar | Old Nectar P.O.Box 127 Stellenbosch 7599 |
Una Dorothy van der Spuy was born on 20 July 1912 at East London, South Africa.
Until the age of nine years she lived on a farm in the Stutterheim district.
She then started school in King Williams Town (Bisho) and matriculated there in
1928, after which she studied at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, and later with
Unisa. Her subjects were Economics and International Politics, with the
objective of, at some future date, making a career in politics.
From 1938 to 1941, (during the first part of World War II) she lived in London
and experienced the trauma of the bombing, both with incendiaries and high
explosives.
She returned to South Africa in 1941 and she and her husband, General K.R. van
der Spuy C.B.E., M.C., bought the property Old Nectar, an old Cape Dutch House
with a few hectares of ground. As there was no garden she immediately set about
trying to create one worthy of the house. In this, despite having no knowledge
of plants when she started, she succeeded admirably, as the garden in due
course was declared a National Monument, the only private garden to have been
thus honoured to date. From 1950 she has opened the garden each spring to raise
funds for various charities and it has become well-known and featured in
magazines and books in many countries of the world.
Ten years after she arrived at Old Nectar Una started contributing gardening
articles to magazines and a few years later she wrote her first book, Gardening
in Southern Africa. In order to illustrate her books she learned photography
and, over a period oft 12 years, she took about 10 000 pictures of flowers in
order to produce pictures of good enough quality to use in the books. For many
years she was active in the field of conservation and preservation,
particularly with regard to old buildings which were being demolished at an
alarming rate.
In 1992 the Cape Tercentenary Foundation made an Award of Merit to her for outstanding services to Conservation in the Cape. Una also received a medal from the Nurserymen's Association for Meritorious Service to Horticulture".
Town & Country Promotions, Cape Town, will lead a group of overseas visitors through Great Private Houses & Gardens of the Cape, among them Old Nectar, in October.
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