“Quiet, sensitive, kind, serious, thorough, reserved, modest and polite are all words applied to Hank.
But so too are curious, studious, determined, demanding, stubborn and focused.
“Once Hank had applied his mind positively to an idea, he became rather like a dog with a bone. He would not let go until the idea became a project to which he could contribute and when he contributed, he demanded a high standard.”
This is how Andrew Ovenstone, patron of Friends of the Arderne Gardens (Fotag), described his long-time friend Hank Lith at a memorial tribute held on Thursday 23 February at one of Lith’s “favourite and most loved places” – the Arderne Gardens in Claremont.
Early in January, Francois Krige, chair of Fotag, sent out an email to Friends, donors and Fellows, informing them of Lith’s passing on Sunday 1 January. While on holiday in Gauteng with his life partner, Rod Clayton, Lith died of a heart attack while visiting a garden.
On Thursday evening, with guests seated under the shade of the Champion Norfolk Island Pine tree, Ovenstone shared the chronology of Lith’s life.
A memorial booklet – compiled by Clare Gibbon and handed out to those attending the tribute – captured Lith’s many achievements.
Born in Johannesburg in 1939, the landscape architect spent the first 42 years or so of his life contributing to the conservation of nature reserves and public resorts in Transvaal and later, to municipal planting in Sandton.
In 1985, he and Clayton moved to Cape Town, where Lith worked in the Town Planning Division of Cape Town City Council until 1999. Here he designed and managed extensive “greening” of the city, planting thousands of urban trees in St George’s Mall, the Foreshore, Newlands Avenue, Roeland Street, and the area around the City Hall.
In 1987, he also took on the responsibilities of trusteeship for Vergelegen Estate in Somerset West.
His love affair with the Arderne Gardens began in 2014, when he took the public arboretum under his wing.
Krige, who has filled the Fotag chair position for the past 20 years, says Lith was the determined driving force behind much of the improvements at the gardens. He says every committee member has fond memories of Lith.
“He played a huge role here. He and I worked really well together. His strengths were my weaknesses and vice versa. In fact, an evening like this evening, the person we miss the most, to organise an event like this, is Hank. This would have been him. When it came to decorum and protocol, he was the man. He knew how to gather people behind him when support was needed. It is going to be a very different Fotag going forward.”
Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis was also among the many friends and supporters who had gathered to say goodbye to Lith.
Hill-Lewis shares that while he was campaigning to be mayor, there was a gentleman who kept on emailing him, inviting him to come and look at the Arderne Gardens.
“So very shortly after I was elected mayor, maybe in the first two or three weeks, I came here and he took me on a wonderful tour of the gardens and he told me the whole history. It was the first time that I had visited the gardens and I was just blown away by this man’s dedication, how much he had given, the decades, to caring for this garden.”
He describes Lith as a lovely man who was very passionate about the Arderne Gardens.
“Hank devoted a lot of time and effort to raising money for the gardens and making them into what we see today. When I heard of his passing on the first of January, I thought the very least I could do was to come and honour him by attending.”
Mikhail Manuel, councillor for Ward 59, says he first met Lith shortly after the ward councillor elections held in November 2021.
“He invited me to his home to have tea with him and Rod. Really what I found was a gentleman who was so genuine and thinks about the broader community all the time. And his passion for trees, I then learned, had led to him planting Newlands Avenue which I am so grateful for because it is one of the reasons why I love Newlands and Ward 59. I find Hank to be a personal inspiration but also someone who has shaped Cape Town for years to come.”
