Garden sights in Cape Town
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Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens
Covering over 500 hectares of Table Mountain, overlooking False Bay and the Cape Flats, these beautiful landscaped gardens merge almost imperceptibly with the surrounding natural fynbos (fine bush) vegetation. The gardens were established by Jan van Riebeeck, who appointed a forester in 1657.
A group of shipwrecked French refugees on their way to Madagascar was employed during 1660 to plant the famous wild almond hedge as the boundary of the Dutch outpost (it’s still here). Van Riebeeck called his private farm Boschheuwel, and most likely it wasn’t until the 1700s, when the gardens were managed by JF Kirsten, that they got the name Kirstenbosch. Apart from the almond…
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Company’s Gardens
What started as the vegetable patch for the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC, or Dutch East India Company) is now a shady green escape in the heart of the city. The surviving 6 hectares of Jan van Riebeeck’s original 18-hectare garden are found around Government Ave, with gates next to the National Library of South African and off both Museum and Queen Victoria Sts.
As the VOC’s sources of supply diversified, the grounds became a superb pleasure garden, planted with a fine collection of botanical specimens from South Africa and the rest of the world, including frangipanis, African flame trees, aloes and roses.
The squirrels that scamper here were imported to…
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