19 Aug 2021

For Some people being told to start small is discouraging, but for Rampho Garden owners, starting small was the beginning of realisation of a dream. 

Generally there are negative notions around  backyard gardening, with some thinking it is  tedious.

With passion for farming, Mr Michael Rampho and his wife Ntshetsa started a horticultural garden for domestic consumption. 

Pests, weeds and high water bills challenges however forced them to halt the project. They then ventured into piggery but later abandoned it when the animals started dying. 

In an interview, Ms Rampho attributed their misfortunes to not being pros in the field of farming as her husband was in catering business while she was a nurse. 

True to the saying that tough times don’t last but tough people do, they went back to drawing boards, this time thinking of trees and flowers.  The duo started a garden, which has since become a go to photo spot in Serowe. 

The couple is running the business at their home at Selobilwe ward in Serowe.

Mr Rampho, who manages the garden  said they realised that planting trees was not a miss, as evidenced by the admiration they received from passersby. 

Then they realised that apart from having a beautiful home they could offer it as a place where those getting married could use it for creating memories, by doing photo shoots. 

They built a shed which generated a lot of interest among the villages who started making enquiries for photo shoots, a move that resulted in the garden becoming a popular photo shoot spot. 

He narrated how a photographer who passed by their homestead fuelled the idea of turning their backyard garden into a location for photo shoots.

After considering the idea they started investing in the garden to make it a befitting photo spot.

Mr Rampho said he developed a design for the place, which he shared with his wife. Having embraced the idea they started buying more trees from different sources. They completed the look by planting a lawn and paved the yard.

The colourful garden boasts of ornamental plants, succulent trees, flowers such as roses, wild fruit trees such as motlopi, motsentsela among others. 

In addition to advertising their place on social media, through recommendations from past clients, they get requests from people interested in using the place for photo shoots.

He said this was because the place had now become popular among the residents and its proximity to the main road made it accessible to many.

He said because of the beautiful landscape of their garden, their home was sometimes mistaken for a guest house. 

Mr Rampho said their desire was to acquire a license to operate a photo spot and to also have a part of the garden as a locale for different events such as conferences and wedding receptions.

The couple expressed that they however faced challenges such as shortage of water.

They said watering their garden using  water from domestic water supply was expensive.

To try to address the problem, they sometimes use water from the river next to their home and also reuse water from their house.

They also cited as one of their challenges, COVID-19 pandemic, which had resulted in restrictions on wedding celebrations.

For her part Ms Rampho said her love for nature, particularly for trees gave her motivation to keep the place alive.

She appreciated her husband’s unwavering support from the day she planted the first tree in their home, saying it was a beginning of a wonderful adventure. 

Ms Rampho said working together as a couple had brought them far since 2010 when they first started gardening.

She saidbeing optimistic that the garden would bring them the success they had always desired. also helped. 

The place features three themes, the traditional, tourism and contemporary.

For traditional theme, they have pottery works such as water pitchers, which Mr Rampho said was inspired by traditional cultural practices.

To bring in an aspect of tourism to their garden, they installed sculptures of wild animals and also planted wild trees. ends