Sitting at a table in his home in Greenside, Johannesburg, where he has lived for three decades, Patrick discusses his life, and how he found his love for plants. Before settling in to chat to the author and curator of Veld, Patrick explains that he sees the garden surrounding the house — an eclectic forest that threatens to take over the building — as ‘a plant orphanage’, a place where specimens removed from projects during demolition, salvaged from building sites, or saved from homes he has lived in can find sanctuary.

Garreth: You’ve said before that you started gardening seriously when you were six…

Patrick: I think even earlier, quite frankly. You know, all kids garden, planting little flowers here and there, but I obviously carried on more seriously. After a few years, my childhood friends moved on to bicycles, girls, and then sports cars, but I’ve always been happy with the veld and my dogs. I grew up in Bryanston, where there were very few houses in the 1950s. It was just veld everywhere, like living on a farm, and I would walk with my parents every day. You’d see jackal, steenbok, snakes, chameleons — just fantastic to grow up with, really. 

Garreth: What was school like for you? 

Patrick: Honestly, I never took a serious interest in it. But I have always been really interested in reading and passionate about it. I remember going with my mother to buy a book when I was about four or five and telling her that I wanted ‘a true book’ because I’ve never really liked fiction. Of course, I enjoyed stories like Alice in Wonderlandand The Lord of the Rings, especially when it comes to landscape design, but I like facts most of all. I’ve always had this obsession with reason, and I think education at the time was really by rote, and I couldn’t understand it. My own kids had a different education. But what I understand, I understand, and what I don’t, I delegate, and it’s how I have managed to get all these jobs done. 

Garreth: As someone who hardly exercises, I can barely keep up with you! When we walk through the gardens together, your pace is honestly herculean. But I remember walking with you through the park the other day and noticing how you weren’t just looking at plants, but looking at what grew alongside them, or near them, and how close this one was to the water, or that one on a hill. 

Patrick: The truth is I only climb mountains to see what plants are on top. I certainly don’t do it for the exercise. When I’m walking, I collect seeds, or garden plants that I might use, but it’s not always about gardens. You have to understand ecology, how nature works, how it all fits together, all the little pieces, to do this job. It’s why at Steyn City, where I planted those wild trees, they are now seeding themselves. If someone had planted them atop a hill, or on a beach, they wouldn’t seed themselves. So, it’s about sustainability, but I’m also interested in aesthetics, about things being in their right place.

Artist: Heidi Fourie

You need to know in your mind if it’s a grey garden, or a green garden, or a red garden, or this or that, and then you put it in, like, a computer. I have a very mechanical brain. But it’s all about concept for me. I’m conceptual; I like a concept, and I get a concept. Nature’s a concept. Seychelles, for instance, is a concept. The desert is a concept. Fynbos is a concept. But beneath it all, you have to know your plants, know that some ferns grow in water and some ferns grow in the desert. If you don’t know your plants, you are just wasting your time. A client asked me about Bobbejaansterts, also known as Black-stick Lily (Xerophyta retinervis), plants that are, like, 300 years old in the wild, and you have to remove all the soil with them, or they won’t make it. So, you need to know your plants, or things die, but it’s also about instinct.

I think instinct has a lot to do with gardening because it’s too complicated if you don’t work with your instinct. But still, it helps to see it in nature, because then you know. There are reasons for things, and you need to meditate on them. If you choose to work on instinct though, then you need to be dead serious. It’s what the Romans called ‘gravitas’. You must think and act like it is life or death in the decisions you make, otherwise it’s a serious problem. 

Garreth: But surely it has become easier since you got older? 

Patrick: Yes, experience helps. When you are young, you are quite unsure. It’s like that is set in a way, your creativity. It’s just the same with decisions. If you observe nature, you know how this works; if you put a sheep and a lion together, you can guess who is going to win. So it’s kind of like logic. Rationalism, I believe in. Logic, I believe in. Not lying, I believe in. I’m really obsessed with a thing being accurate or true. I don’t like marketing, pretending, or making a façade of something.

A lot of my work is about fantasy, but something like Sun City is an honest lie. It’s a jungle that shouldn’t be there, so that works for me. But I go more and more towards things like Steyn City that will seed itself. As I get older, I understand that it is important to do that rather. I knew that I would never finish it, I mean, after a decade it’s still only 10 percent finished, but the land will seed itself and nature will take over. Like the Magpie Robin that is coming back to North Island in the Seychelles after we planted the flora it needed to eat and survive. You see, it needs the right environment to look after itself, and to feel secure, and that’s what a good garden should do.

“When I’m walking, I collect seeds, or garden plants that I might use, but it’s not always about gardens. You have to understand ecology, how nature works, how it all fits together, all the little pieces, to do this job.”

Find out more about Veld – The Gardens and Landscapes of Patrick Watson here: https://struiknature.co.za/product/nt-veld-gardens-landscapes-of-patrick/