On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Elma
The second installment of the International Garden Tour is in South Africa in 2013. My African safari began and ended in South Africa, with visits in between to Botswana and Zimbabwe. The last stop before our very long flight home was a few days in Cape Town which included a visit to the Kristenbosch National Botanical Garden.
The Kristenbosch is a World Heritage Site, established in 1913 as the first indigenous botanical garden. It is part of the Cape Floristic Region, the smallest of the six recognized floral kingdoms of the world, an area of extraordinarily diversity.
It has been very difficult to get down to 10 pictures about this place. The garden is on the slope of a mountain. You start at the top and work down.
There were many protea, of course.
This bird of paradise flower was named for Nelson Mandela, who visited the garden and planted a native tree in 1996.
The variety of plants was amazing.
The day we visited it was rainy and overcast but still beautiful.
War for Ukraine Day 1,475: If You Look Around the Table & Can’t Tell Who the Mark Is, You’re the Mark
Baud
stinger
How beautiful! Love those huge agave-like plants in the last photo, set off by soft pink and chartreuse and purple and orange flowering plants. And the colors of the second protea. And the mountainside setting, the rocks — just wonderful.
Baud, thanks for the data. “Just the facts, ma’am.”
munira
I love this series.
Dmkingto
Nice! Looks like a fascinating place.
BigJimSlade
Hey, nice to see this – I’ve been up on Table Mountain a couple times, but never made it around back to the Garden.
StringOnAStick
This botanical region is where a LOT of the plants introduced into the US for low water landscapes originated, like the red hot poker plant in the second to last photo, or the perennial ice plant that is so popular with xeric gardeners now. A garden tour to S. Africa would be on my dream list too!
The area that most closely matches the rigors of the US western states would be Afghanistan, but, well, I won’t be traveling there. That’s where the plant commonly called Russian Sage originated, though that one is a bit too aggressive of a subsurface spreader for my uses. Hell, at the rate we are pissing off the world, I’m not sure I’ll be traveling anywhere outside the US again.
Madeleine
I am not much of a gardener, but, looking at your two sets of photos, I realized that I love botanical gardens. This one is both beautiful and unlike any other. Thank you.