Lowveld National Botanical Garden

02/09/2026

02/09/2026

National Arbor Week (1-7 September)

01/09/2026

A medley of mantids

Mantids, more commonly known as Praying Mantises, are predators towards the top of the food chain in the insect world. They are ambush (sit-and-wait) hunters that rely on camouflage, sharp stereo vision, and lightning-fast front legs to capture live prey. They are part of an ecologically friendly gardener's first line of defence when it comes to pest insects.

01/09/2026

Spring is here, and the Ladies of the Lowveld Garden welcomes it with cheerfulness and colour.

31/08/2026

African Traditional Medicine Day

31/08/2026

Tongue-leaved Vygie (Glottiphyllum depressum https://pza.sanbi.org/glottiphyllum-depressum) is a compact, low-growing succulent shrublet with a few short branches lying flat against the ground with tightly-packed tongue-shaped succulent leaves, often with hooked tips. Bright yellow flowers appear in autumn and winter into spring, they have no stalks and are held low among the leaves. Fruit capsules are rounded and often detach soon after ripening, rolling away from from the mother plant and are tumbled along by the wind, dispersing the seeds. One of the easiest small succulents to grow, it can be propagated from seeds and cuttings. It needs well-drained soil in a sunny or semi-shaded position and moderate watering in autumn, winter and spring and little to none in summer. It is low-maintenance and drought-tolerant but not frost-hardy.

31/08/2026

The McMurtry Haworthiopsis (https://pza.sanbi.org/haworthiopsis-koelmaniorum-var-mcmurtryi) is a small, stemless, rosette-forming succulent with dark brownish-green leaves covered in small bumps, and a slender spike of small white flowers in summer. It is a rare species, known from a small area of the Mpumalanga Highveld, that is Red Listed as Vulnerable because wild plants are stolen for the ornamental plant trade, and farming, grazing and other human activities are degrading and destroying its habitat. It grows among rocks, in a semi-arid grassland habitat, where its cryptic colouring helps it blend in to avoid grazing animals. It can be propagated from seeds and leaf cuttings. Best grown in containers, in well-drained soil, in a sunny, well-ventilated environment with moderate water in summer and a dry winter. Please do not support the illegal trade in succulent plants by buying wild-collected plants. Buy only nursery-grown plants from registered growers.

30/08/2026

A tiny bird with a big personality

This small, rotund bird spends its days in the understory of thickets and riverine woodland, as well as the forest, and forest edges if the Garden, where it hops about, often low to the ground, searching for small insects.

The Green-backed Camaroptera’s round, puffed-up appearance and the way it c***s its tail at a ninety-degree angle definitely adds to its “cuteness factor”.

They are monogamous and territorial, advertising their claim to an area by snapping their bills and “friping" or whirring their wings when excited or agitated during territorial disputes. Males give loud, penetrating songs that sound like stones knocking together or rapid snapping and when alarmed they will utter a bleating sound, which explains their earlier name of “bleating warbler”.