2GreenLandscaping & garden maintenance in Simondium
In the Drakenstein Valley, home to some of the Cape's most celebrated gardens, 2Green brings that same care to Simondium's homes and farms.
Your local garden team in Simondium
Simondium lies almost exactly halfway between Paarl and Franschhoek, in the heart of the Drakenstein Valley. It is home to Babylonstoren, arguably South Africa's most famous formal garden, as well as historic wine estates like Boschendal and Backsberg. It is an area that sets a high bar for what a garden can be.
We bring that standard to private homes, smallholdings and farm gardens across Simondium: from structured, water-wise landscaping and productive kitchen gardens to lawns, irrigation and tree care. The valley's rich soils and warm summers reward good planting and consistent maintenance, which is exactly what we provide.
Where we work around Simondium
What Simondium gardens are working with
The ground
Two soils on one slope. Up under the Simonsberg it is gritty acidic decomposed granite, shallow Glenrosa and Mispah profiles over rock. Lower down it deepens to red Hutton and Clovelly, then to Berg River alluvium on the eastern boundary, which holds water into spring and wants raised beds.
The weather
Rain falls almost entirely May to August, with February near 20 mm and the modelled estimates putting the year somewhere around 810 mm. Rainfall climbs sharply with the ground up the Simonsberg, so two gardens on the same slope water differently.
The properties
Simondium has no suburbs. The precinct plan calls it a rural settlement: public and private primary schools, a clinic, shops and two service stations around the Watergat Road junction on the R45, farms the rest of the way. So the work here is werf, avenue, dam surround and homestead garden, on hectares.
Best lawn for Simondium
Kikuyu on the open werf and dam surrounds, buffalo in the Simonsberg shadow, LM Berea under the oaks and gums.
Properties tucked under the Simonsberg lose the sun by mid-afternoon. Open ground falling east to the Berg River takes all of it, through a February that barely rains, and that open ground is kikuyu country. Buffalo goes where the Simonsberg shadow falls, not where the water bill is the problem. Under the gum and oak rows kikuyu thins out and LM Berea does not. Both idle May to August, while the dams refill.
What we plant here
Protea repens, waboom and Leucadendron rubrum on the granite up the slope. Vegetables, olives and deciduous fruit in the river soil. Clivia and plectranthus under the gums.
Boland Granite Fynbos is what grew on these Simonsberg slopes, so those three are locals here, not an experiment. They want the thin acid grit high up and nothing else: no kraal manure, no mushroom compost, no bone meal, because high phosphorus kills proteas. The deep Berg River alluvium at the bottom is wrong for fynbos and right for food.
What we get called out to in Simondium
The call we get most in Simondium is a dead protea bed. It has been planted in the good alluvium at the bottom, fed kraal manure and watered all summer, which is root rot waiting to happen. Move the same plants up onto the granite grit, mulch with pine bark, stop feeding, and they live. The second is a bed under the gums, where those trees take the water as well as the light.
Watering rules: Drakenstein Municipality
Checked August 2026
Level 0, in force since 1 November 2020
Simondium falls under Drakenstein, but most properties here run off a borehole or farm dam rather than a municipal meter, so the dam level in February binds long before the restriction level does. Drakenstein's standing notice to users of municipal potable water allows watering of gardens, lawns and beds before 10:00 and after 16:00, every day. Boreholes and well points inside the municipal network must be registered, and under the Drakenstein Water and Sanitation Services By-law of 2023 any alternative water source must display the municipality's sign.
Restriction levels change with dam levels. Confirm the current one with Drakenstein Municipality before you set an irrigation controller.
What we do in Simondium
Complete landscaping and garden care for private homes and estate common grounds alike.
Garden landscaping & design
Complete garden landscaping: from concept and planting plans to paving, lawns, retaining walls and water-wise indigenous gardens, built to transform your outdoor space.
Garden maintenance
Regular garden maintenance for private gardens and estate common grounds: mowing, weeding, pruning, hedge trimming, bed care and seasonal clean-ups all year.
Irrigation systems
Water-wise irrigation designed, installed and maintained so your lawns, beds and new landscaping thrive with less water.
Tree felling & pruning
Tree felling, removal and pruning, plus lawn treatment and pest & weed control by experienced, horticulturally-minded hands.
Paving & hard landscaping
Patios, driveways and garden paths laid on a properly prepared base, with edging and drainage that keep them level for years.
Instant lawn
Supplied, prepared and laid: a level, rooted lawn in a day, with the soil prep and top-dressing that makes it take.
Artificial grass
Hard-wearing artificial grass for shaded corners, pet runs and small courtyards where real lawn simply will not grow.
Simondium garden FAQs
Do you design productive and kitchen gardens?๏ผ
Yes. Inspired by the valley's celebrated working gardens, we design and maintain productive spaces alongside ornamental landscaping: herb and vegetable beds, fruit trees and water-wise planting.
Do you service farms and smallholdings in Simondium?๏ผ
We do, from private homes to smallholdings and farm homesteads in the Drakenstein Valley, covering landscaping, lawns, irrigation and established-tree care.
We are on a borehole and farm dam, not a municipal meter. Can you still design the irrigation?๏ผ
Yes, and it is the normal case here. The precinct plan is blunt that the municipality cannot fully service outlying rural areas, and notes decades of investment in farm dams, canals and pipe networks instead. We design to the pressure and flow your pump actually gives, zone the werf lawn separately from the beds so they do not compete, and size the summer programme against what the dam still holds in February, not what it holds in August.
Can you clear invasive alien plants off the upper slope of a Simondium property?๏ผ
Yes. On this ground the invaders are Port Jackson, silky hakea and cluster pine, and taking them off the upper slope gives the remaining Boland Granite Fynbos room to come back. The precinct plan wants the nature reserves on the Simonsberg extended down these lower slopes, and asks for 32 m either side of every river bank left unbuilt and unploughed, so we plan the clearing and the replanting to sit inside that.
Helpful guides for Simondium gardens
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