ABOUT THE GARDENS
A Botanical Experience Rooted in Conservation and Discovery
Welcome to the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden Shop – a vibrant extension of the garden’s mission to inspire, educate, and conserve.
Now located in a spacious new building, our shop offers a thoughtfully curated selection of botanically inspired products, rare plants, and homeware. Every item reflects our deep connection to the natural world, with a strong focus on sustainability, education, and conservation.
Botanical art finds its home
Since 2023, the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden (SUBG) has hosted an annual botanical art exhibition, inviting artists to work closely with rare and endangered species from its collections. This work has contributed to the James & Shirley Sherwood Botanical Art Collection, a growing permanent collection that reflects both the diversity of South African flora and the skill of the artists interpreting it.
On 8 May 2026, this collection will be formally housed in the newly established SU Botanical Garden Gallery - a dedicated space for botanical art within the SUBG.
Botanical illustration documents plants with precision, capturing form, structure, and detail in a way that remains accessible throughout the years. For species that are seasonal, short-lived, or easily overlooked, this provides a more constant point of reference.
Each artwork is developed with access to live specimens and supported by scientific reference material – all of which is provided by the SUBG. To ensure accuracy, each artwork is carefully checked, ensuring that the collection remains both visually engaging and botanically reliable.
The gallery will focus on rare, endangered, and under-documented species, many of which are only visible or identifiable for short periods in their natural environments. Through illustration, their presence becomes easier to recognise and engage with.
Situated in the Garden’s restored historic office building, the SU Botanical Garden Gallery provides a permanent home for the James & Shirley Sherwood Botanical Art Collection, alongside the Brendel botanical models, and a selection of newly acquired works.
Together, these elements extend the Garden’s collections beyond the living landscape, offering visitors another way to encounter and reflect on its plant diversity.
Seven Years in the making -
Haemanthus pumilio
Haemanthus pumilio (H. pumilio) is a lowland species endemic to the Stellenbosch–Paarl area, and today it survives in only three known populations. Ongoing habitat loss from urban expansion and agriculture has reduced most of its natural range, placing the species at significant risk.
Like many Haemanthus species, plants become dormant through the dry summer months, then flower just ahead of the winter rains. Seeds are released just before the seasonal rains to give seedlings an optimal start. Thereafter, two large leaves are formed, storing energy for the next season.
It’s a system that works, but not very quickly. Some Haemanthus species can take up to 17 years to flower, making every successful flowering event a long-term investment.
At the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden, this long view underpins ongoing conservation work. For more than a decade, the Garden’s team has monitored wild populations, carried out hand-pollination, and protected developing seed from predation. Seed collected from these populations are cultivated ex situ in the garden, with the aim of reintroducing mature plants to the general population.
In 2018, seed from one of the remaining H. pumilio populations was sown at the Garden. In 2025, critically endangered paintbrush lilies from a key local population eventually flowered!
Seven years is a long wait, but in conservation terms, it’s a meaningful result. It demonstrates that ex situ cultivation of H. pumilio is viable, and that sustained, careful human intervention can yield beautiful results over time.
With so little natural habitat remaining, continued conservation effort will likely be essential to prevent further decline. For now, these flowering plants offer something tangible: a reminder that even slow-growing species can respond when given the right conditions and consistent care.
Our critically endangered paintbrush lilies can be viewed in the Garden’s bulb collection - an opportunity to see a species that few will ever encounter in the wild.
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.
Summer in the Cape
Anyone who has spent time in the Cape during summer knows there are a few inescapable truths about this season on the southern tip of Africa. The howling southeaster can turn an otherwise pleasant beach day into a human sandblasting experience. Dry ground bakes in the heat, people flock to any available water for relief, and fires are a familiar presence, sometimes transforming blue summer skies into an apocalyptic blanket of smoke.
Unlike the rest of South Africa, the Cape has a Mediterranean climate, with cool, rainy winters and hot, dry summers. The region is also geographically isolated. A series of imposing sandstone mountains separates the Cape from the country’s interior, effectively creating a botanical island. Over millions of years, this climatic and geographic isolation has allowed plants to evolve and diversify, giving rise to the remarkable flora we see today.
While spring in the Cape is a kaleidoscope of colour that draws visitors from far and wide, summer presents a stark contrast. To the untrained eye, the veld can appear parched, brown, and even lifeless. This is surprising in the Cape Floristic Region, a globally recognised biodiversity hotspot packed with extraordinary plants found nowhere else on Earth. So why does it look so barren in summer?
Cape plant species have developed a range of strategies to survive these harsh summer conditions. Bulbs and other geophytes shed their leaves and stems, retreating underground where stored starches and moisture sustain them through the dry months. Many shrubs have fine, narrow leaves with rolled-in margins, reducing water loss by limiting exposure to wind and heat. Annuals, like the iconic Namaqualand daisies, complete their life cycle in spring, set seed, and die, leaving their offspring to reappear only after the first rains.
Both fynbos and its lesser-known sister vegetation type, renosterveld, are also shaped by fire. Many species use smoke as a cue for seed germination. After a fire, smoke-derived molecules settle on seeds, signalling that competing vegetation has been cleared and nutrients released into the soil. However, because most fires occur in summer, immediate germination would be risky. Germination-inhibiting compounds remain in place until the first rains arrive, washing them away and signalling that conditions are finally right for new growth.
Summer is a season of rest and survival for the hyperdiverse flora, a necessary period of dormancy that allows plants to escape the worst of the heat and drought. While the explosive display of spring flowers is rightly celebrated, there is a quieter beauty to the dry, crisp Cape in summer. None of the spectacle of spring would be possible without this season of restraint. So the next time you walk through seemingly lifeless veld in summer, imagine the abundance of life resting beneath your feet. Better yet, return in spring and see just how dramatically it all changes.
Spring: A Season of Growth, Reflection, and Conservation
There’s never a quiet season at Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden (SUBG), but spring marks the peak of our conservation fieldwork. October, as summer approaches, is especially vibrant. In South Africa, it has become known as Garden Month, with National Garden Day and Stellenbosch’s Garden Town both taking place during this time. At SUBG, we celebrate the season with a series of special events.
One highlight is our annual Rare Plant Market, founded by Dr Donovan Kirkwood a few years ago. Over the years, it’s drawn crowds eager to discover unique plants from a wide range of vendors, including specialists in indoor plants, succulents, bonsai, and carnivorous species. This year, SUBG partnered with Market in the Garden to expand the event, adding stalls featuring plant-themed goods like shelving, pots, and tools. With perfect weather and enthusiastic visitors, it was a memorable weekend. Traditionally held in October, the market may soon become a bi-annual event due to growing interest.
Our Botanical Art and Photography exhibition, now in its third year, opened in September and runs through January 2026. The gallery received specialist upgrades to showcase artists’ work better and accommodate our expanding permanent collection. This initiative supports botanical art in South Africa and encourages appreciation for local flora through creative expression. For more, see art curator Karen Stewart’s feature.
October’s fieldwork took us to Darling, where we observed five flowering species of “winecups,” most of which are threatened with extinction. This effort is part of a broader conservation project to collect and preserve these species and study their pollination biology.
During Woordfees, botanist and friend of SUBG, Rupert Koopman, led an insightful tour on the value of indigenous plants, innovative gardening techniques, and the importance of seasonal awareness in cultivating native flora.
This month has also been one of reflection and loss for the SUBG team, following the tragic passing of Dr Donovan Kirkwood in late September. We’re deeply grateful for the support from our community during this time.
The Secrets of Western Cape Spring: Blossoms of Renewal
As winter rains retreat, the Western Cape awakens in a blaze of colour. From the Namaqualand daisies carpeting fields in vivid orange, to the delicate pelargoniums tucked along mountain slopes, spring here is not just a season — it’s a spectacle of survival, renewal, and beauty unique to the Cape Floristic Region.
Wildflower wonderlands abound with Namaqualand daisies (Dimorphotheca spp.) known as “the jewels of Namaqualand”, these blooms transform dry landscapes into succulent living carpets. Succulent Vygies (Mesembryanthemum) bloom in the sun, flashing pinks, purples, and yellows across rocky plains. Watsonias and Irises, iconic bulbous plants, thrive in spring's mild weather and sandy soils.
The Cape’s winter rainfall climate, followed by warm sunny days, creates the perfect trigger for mass germination. Many plants have evolved to time their life cycle to this narrow window, ensuring pollination before summer’s harsh dryness sets in.
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