Useful Plants Garden at Kirstenbosch

Objectives

The purpose of the Useful Plants Garden is to educate the general public about useful indigenous plants, to stimulate interest and practically involve communities in the development of indigenous crops, preservation and conservation of threatened plants.

Objectives of garden development phase

• Develop a useful plants demonstration garden within year one
• Construct a modern Xhosa/Mpondo hut as the central focal point of the design and for housing informational displays
• Divide the garden beds into sections based on plant use
• Ensure that more than 50% of the plants in the garden are rare, threatened or endangered in keeping with the conservation ideology
• Convert the old medicinal garden into an HIV/AIDS stock plant section for use in Project Phase 2
• Build an endangered and extinct medicinal tree arboretum for Ocotea bullata, Warburgia salutaris, and similar species
• Develop an effective and informative plant labeling system
• Generate public interest in indigenous useful plants.

Objectives of community involvement phase

• Develop working relationships with traditional healers
• Facilitate workshops to promote horticultural skills development such as plant propagation
• Provide information about indigenous edible plants to impoverished communities to help improve nutrition and quality of life
• Develop working relationships with HIV/AIDS related organizations to provide skills and information about plants used to treat secondary symptoms of the disease
• Provide support for the development of community-based useful plant gardens through the Outreach Greening Programme of the National Botanical Institute
• Encourage planting and development of indigenous fruit trees, cereals, vegetables, berries and nuts.
  

• Introduction
• Objectives
• Role useful plants play
• Sections and plants
• Design of the Garden
• The hut
• Map

Sponsors
Rowland & Leta Hill Trust

Botanical Society