Ready to design your garden?

Step 3. Choose plants

In this section we will guide you through creating a plant species list for your site. Your ‘mother list’ of plants will be derived from the plants that would have historically occurred at your site. You will then select a few types of plants and shorten that mother list to a smaller list that fulfills the social and ecological needs you aim to fulfill with the garden. Use information from Step 2 to inform your choices.

No matter what you choose as the theme for your plant choice, you should establish the garden in a three step process starting with 1) a foundation of pioneer plants, and 2) aim to recreate the structure (or particular combination of groundcovers, grass-like plants, shrubs) of an existing reference site for the historical vegetation type of your area. Your site will then be ready to provide a healthy soil and sheltered wind environment for the more sensitive Fynbos species, which will then be more likely to survive.

Start by reading more about the historical vegetation type on the tab on the left.

And then browse the recommended plant lists for your vegetation type.

Below is an overview of the process of creating a species list.

Overview