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PROJECT

MAGALIESBERG

COUNTRY ESTATE

Text and photos supplied by Alfred Rapoo

Since May 2018, Alfred Rapoo has been employed fulltime
at Magaliesberg Country Estate in Akasia, Pretoria. He
is responsible for maintaining the estate’s grounds and
landscaping, and reports directly to the estate manager
and Board of Directors. His work started with rehabilitation
of the area as the estate was in a neglected condition.

Entrance signage complemented by soft colour
n addition to landscape design, Rapoo explains: “There were empty gaps of the development that were recently
installation and upgrading, Rapoo’s at the reception area and trees around undertaken.”
Iwork also involves taking care of the the estate were struggling due to lack of
garden fence parameters, cleaning of water; they required composting and tree Purchase of new machinery
spaces around the estate’s 600 housing stakes for support, and to ensure further
units, minor road repairs, irrigation and good growth. The landscaping was also With most of the machinery and equipment
quality control. The Board of Directors full of weeds and lacked nutrients. The not being usable when he commenced
initially tasked him with restoring the estate manager played an important work, Rapoo proposed the purchase of a
long-neglected gardens and one of role in motivating the purchase of a PTO new shredder machine, boom spray, long
several problems that he faced was a lack shredder machine to ensure that shredded pruner, hedge trimmer and chain saw in
of machinery, as existing machinery was in material is used as mulch to improve water order to attain the desired results on site.
need of repair. In addition, the irrigation retention and ensure healthy plants. We In an annual summary to the Board of
system was not functioning optimally and have installed an irrigation system with a Directors for the period May 2018 – June
the garden layout was in need of attention water wise/water saving MP rotator, and 2019, he reported the following positive
– trees were hanging over the fence line the automatic system is now working at results:
and on walkways – and the client wanted both the east and west entrances to the
to bring about an immediate improvement estate. The system has enabled large areas • the cleaning of the fence line was
to the estate’s overall appearance. to be properly irrigated and we hope successful and a TLB has cleared
to be able to extend it to other phases vegetation away from it, particularly for

Gabion baskets and Acacia xanthophloea give the estate a warm African feel

8 Landscape SA • Issue 91 2019