Plants of South Africa

While sorting through some old notes recently, I rediscovered this blog from a memorable trip to South Africa. The journey included running the Big Five Marathon and spending time exploring the unique plant life of the region. The experience left a strong impression on me at the time, and the extraordinary adaptations of these plants still fascinate me today, so I thought it worth revisiting.

...

I'd been running the Big Five Marathon on the Entabeni Game Reserve — seven days amongst lions, wild dogs, rhinos and every other magnificent creature you can imagine. What a place! But it was the second week, spent wandering the Dolomite Hills near Johannesburg in the region known as the "Cradle of Mankind," that really made my gardener's heart sing. Here, 400 acres of safe country to explore on foot — no lions to watch for — and plants at every turn that made my head turn completely. I do love my plant world.

The Acacia: A Master of Chemical Communication

The humble acacia tree — provider of the bulk of food for antelope and giraffe across the African savanna — has an astonishing trick. Within seconds of an animal taking its first mouthful, it floods its own leaves with bitter tannins to make them unpalatable. Remarkable enough. But the truly jaw-dropping part? Other acacia trees in the vicinity detect those tannins on the breeze — up to 60 metres away — and begin producing their own in anticipation of browsing animals. What an adaptation for survival!

It's a reminder that plants are not passive things. They communicate, respond, and strategise in ways we are only beginning to understand. In my work I'm always encouraging clients to think of their garden as a living community — not a collection of individual plants, but an ecosystem where relationships matter. The acacia knows this better than any of us.

Thorns, Tongues, and the Art of Defence

Then there were the thorn trees — plants with thorns so long and sharp that you simply cannot imagine their fierceness until you're standing in front of one. Thorns, of course, are an adaptation against grazers. Though as any visitor to the African bush quickly learns, they are only partially effective against a giraffe and its extraordinary 40 cm blue tongue. WOW!!!

There is something I find deeply useful in the idea of a plant that has developed its own armour in response to its environment. In Auckland gardens — and particularly in coastal or exposed sites — I'm always thinking about which plants will genuinely belong in a given set of conditions, rather than merely survive them. The plants that thrive are the ones that have, over millennia, developed exactly the right tools for the job.

Winter Flowers and the Plants That Refuse to Be Overlooked

Even in the middle of a South African winter the plants were extraordinary. Fields of orange-flowered Soap Aloes glowing like embers amongst the droughty golden grass. The towering, prickly Mountain Aloe — Aloe marlothii — a plant that will survive a bushfire without so much as a scar. Tiny silver lamb's ears and artemisia growing straight out of hard Dolomite mountainsides — plants I know from New Zealand cottage gardens, here in their raw, original habitat, and looking absolutely magnificent for it.

And then there was the wildly stupendous South African tumbleweed, Brunsvigia bosmanii. From just two small ground-hugging leaves and a bulb underground, this plant produces a voluptuous, football-sized flower head of pink or red on a single stem — an inexplicable floral extravaganza in the middle of a most hostile environment. What a strange and wonderful world we live in.

When I see plants like this performing in conditions that would have lesser things reaching for the compost heap, it reinforces everything I believe about choosing the right plant for the right place. It's not about forcing beauty into difficult spots — it's about finding the plants that are made for difficult spots, and letting them be magnificent.

The Protea: Defiant Beauty

Attention-grabbing South African Sugar Bush — Protea caffra — was seemingly everywhere. The protea is the symbol of South Africa, and standing amongst them in the wild you understand entirely why. This flower appears to be in ironic denial of its environment, its beauty utterly incongruous with the harshness all around it. The plants of this country seem to be a reflection of the people themselves — colourful, resilient, chaotic in the most glorious way, and fundamentally impossible to ignore.

For New Zealand gardeners, the good news is that many proteas perform beautifully in our climate, particularly in drier, well-drained sites. If you haven't considered them for your garden, I'd encourage you to look again.

I came home from South Africa with notebooks full of observations and a renewed sense of wonder at what plants are capable of. Every trip I take — whether it's the African highveld, the Fijian tropics, or the limestone country of Mexico — teaches me something I bring back to the gardens I make here. That cross-pollination between the places we love and the gardens we live in is, I think, one of the most exciting things about this work.

I went back to South Africa for the springtime flowering. If you ever get the chance, go.

Robin