This section of the Garden contains the Visitors’ Entrance Complex, the Concert Area, the Enabling Garden and the Medicinal Garden.

Information about SANBI as an organisation as well as the other nine National Botanical Gardens is available at the Visitors’ Centre. Here visitors can also obtain information about upcoming events hosted in the Garden. The concert stage, where concerts take place during the winter months, as well as the popular Medicinal and Enabling gardens are close by.

A brand new theme garden, called the Water Wise Garden, was launched in the Pretoria National Botanical Garden in September 2014. The aim of the garden is to showcase water wise plants and to demonstrate how water wise principles and special features can be applied in any garden to make it more sustainable in a water scarce country such as South Africa. It is situated behind the concert stage and is easily accessible from the main Garden entrance.

Water Wise Garden mural

The beautiful, wrought-iron Reynolds’ Gate can be seen in the Visitors’ Complex. It was designed and made by Mr Hans Brugger and named in honour of Dr Gilbert Reynolds. Dr Reynolds was an amateur botanist who worked on the genus Aloe and published books on the subject. The gate was previously used as the main entrance to the Garden but is permanently closed now. The new entrance is situated in the new Visitor Centre adjacent to this spectacular work of art.

A self-guided Tree Route starts on the lawn adjacent to the Visitor Centre. Visitors who do this trail will be introduced to 50 of the Garden’s beautiful indigenous trees. Tree Route information booklets are available at the entrance for R20.

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