Babylonstoren, the garden that feeds the place.

Published 3 November 2026 · WHV

At Babylonstoren, a fruit and vegetable garden does more than provide a pleasant route between lunch and a room. It helps organise the identity of the whole estate. The produce in the photograph is a reminder that the landscape is also expected to yield something.

A garden with a working purpose

Karen Roos commissioned Patrice Taravella to design the garden in 2007. The farm is much older, but the visitor garden is a contemporary creation, opened to the public in 2010. Its structured areas combine vegetables, fruit, herbs and other plantings, with water moving through rills. The estate says harvests supply its restaurants throughout the year.

The useful lesson is the relationship between pleasure and production. A productive garden needs paths, water, skilled care and decisions about what belongs where. Its value changes with the season and with the people doing that work. An attractive aerial photograph cannot tell you whether those systems are functioning well.

Visit it in season

Visit with a gardener if possible, and ask what is being harvested, propagated or changed. The estate publishes daily garden tours, so an overnight stay is not the only route into the idea. Check the current booking arrangements and accessibility. There is no property-return thesis here. The interest is a working example of how cultivation can give a place purpose and a reason to return.