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Andrew Mangwarara
THE Highlands Presbyterian Church on Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa Road (formerly Enterprise Road), led by Pastor Pascal Sibanda, has a beautiful and timeless structure.
In front of the church is a breathtaking garden and some chairs.
A church is a place of worship, rest and refuge, and this particular space gives you exactly that.
Beautiful roses add to the attraction, with the queen palm (Arecastrum romanzoffianum) adding to the glamour.
A bed of the sago palm (cycas revoluta), tibouchina and echeveria greets you as you enter.
A magnificent row of croton trees lines the parking lot.
At the back is a grouping of acacias planted to provide shade for relaxation after service.
What is striking about the church garden is the order.
“The best gardens are a balance of order and chaos. The tension created by this constantly threatened balance is the pulse of the garden itself,” writes Helen Humphreys in “The Lost Garden”.
When one starts a garden, it is best to begin with some order and let nature do its own disruption, as plants do not always behave as expected.
To create order in a garden, it is often the everyday activities we do that make a difference.
Start by sweeping all the paving and dirty areas to ensure the garden is clean.
If you have a lawn, mowing will do more for your garden than any other job.
You can get away with murder everywhere else if you mow.
Remove any clutter and recycle anything that is not working for you, such as too many pots or furniture. Reducing the number of pots lessens your workload in terms of watering and tending. Chop anything that is dry and dead. A case in point are dead tree branches.
Another way of ensuring order in your garden is weeding.
Uproot anything that is a weed.
Learn to identify alien invasive species that are also weeds, for example, the cherry pie (lantana camara) and the blue jacaranda (jacaranda mimosifolia).
Another way of creating order, though time-consuming, is to plant in order of the flowering season.
When one plant is through with flowering, another begins blooming; that way, there is a continuous flow of colour from one month to the next. To see what order looks like, you can visit the Highlands Presbyterian Church.
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