A Garden Shaped by Time

Long before the pathways were formalised and today’s collections were shaped, the garden began as a teaching space. In 1902, pioneering botanist Augusta Vera Duthie started cultivating plants near Stellenbosch University’s Main Building so that her students could study living specimens rather than dried ones pressed between pages.

What began as a practical solution slowly grew into something that would endure for more than 100 years.

By 1922, land was set aside for a dedicated botanical garden on its present site, and in 1925 Hans Herre was appointed as its first curator. Herre’s work, particularly with succulents, would leave a lasting imprint on the garden. Through collecting expeditions and careful cultivation, he helped establish the garden as a centre for the study of arid and semi-arid plants at a time when much of this flora was still poorly understood.

Among the most remarkable living legacies of that era is Welwitschia mirabilis. Native to the Namib Desert, and often described as one of the world’s most unusual plants, it produces only two leaves that grow continuously throughout its life. The garden’s specimen, grown from seed in the 1920s under Herre’s care, was one of the first in cultivation to produce cones and viable seed, and nearly a century later, it still unfurls its weathered leaves.

The garden is also home to the Western Cape Bonsai Heritage Collection, which includes one of the oldest known bonsai trees in Africa – donated to the garden in 1972.

Today, the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden continues to serve as a centre for research, conservation and teaching. It remains a working garden in the truest sense, where collections are not only displayed but studied, documented and carefully maintained. At the same time, it offers visitors the opportunity to engage directly with more than a century of botanical knowledge and careful stewardship.

So next time you pause beside the Welwitschia mirabilis or study the form of a century-old bonsai, remember that you are seeing the accumulation of decades of observation, cultivation and care. The garden’s history is not separate from its living collections; it is written into them, season after season.