At just over 30 years old, the Johannesburg Botanical Garden is also one of the country’s newest gardens. It was named the greatest passive recreation spot in the city by people in 2004, who use the greenery to escape the monotony of city life, and it participates in a seed exchange programme with another 300 or so gardens throughout the world.
One of Johannesburg’s critical green lungs is the 81-hectare Botanical Garden. The area for the gardens was set aside in 1969 when it was a naked veld sports field and golf driving range with no trees. It now consists of big, grassy open spaces with trees that are frequented by runners, picnickers, and dog walkers. It offers a concert season and kite-flying competitions on occasion.
The Shakespeare Garden, the Rose Garden, the Herb Garden, a Hedge Demonstration Garden, and the main arboretum, which houses family groups of plants and trees from South Africa and around the world, are among the attractions for visitors.
The gardens have an appealing combination of bunched indigenous and exotic plants surrounded by grass, with views of the Emmarentia Dam, a 7,5-hectare reservoir popular with canoeists and boaters that goes back to the turn of the century. A tea pergola and a forum are also available for meetings, shows, and exhibitions. Two smaller dams above it feed the dam, which is home to a variety of aquatic birds.
The park is walled, and security officers are stationed at all entrances.
History of the Johannesburg Botanical Garden
Despite repeated requests dating back to the 1920s, Johannesburg remained one of the few major cities in the world without a botanical garden for nearly 50 years.
The director of the parks and recreation department then submitted a report to the Johannesburg city council’s management committee on the viability of building a botanic garden on November 19, 1968. The management committee responded by recommending that “a botanic garden be constructed at Jan van Riebeeck Park, and that the parks and recreation department continues with the establishment of a botanic garden as suggested in the report.”
The entire land area available for expansion was 81 hectares, and Joburg got its botanical garden, despite the fact that interest in botanical gardens had declined in the nineteenth century.
The master plan for the garden depicts the botanical layout in broad strokes. In total, 42 plant families have been incorporated into the design, with the majority of species in each family having adequate places. The families, which include both South African and international tree species, serve as the framework for adding shrubs and perennials to complete the aesthetic and botanical image.
For two main sections of the garden, ten-year planting plans have been drawn out, and work on these areas continues on an annual basis. Natural sections of climax grass and forbs, as well as bogs that are part of the perennial stream that runs through the garden, have been preserved in the garden.
Apart from the Rose Garden and the region east of the southern lakes, which was left under natural veld grass and bog, the entire area was contoured to current levels, grassed with kikuyu, and half of the pathways paved by 2009. The pathways are built in such a way that all areas of the garden can be explored without having to go backwards. Visitors can choose between shorter and longer routes. A map showing the numerous trails and all of the key attractions in the park is available at the garden’s headquarters.
The plants in the demonstration sections of the Rose Garden, Herb Garden, and Hedge Garden are now labelled. Unfortunately, as with all botanic gardens around the world, the Johannesburg garden’s labels have been vandalised.
There are three parking places as well. The main one has a one-of-a-kind design in that the entire area was excavated and the soil was utilised to build a berm that hides it from view from both inside and outside the garden. Even before entering the garden, the approach road to the car park goes along the beach of Emmarentia Dam, providing a peaceful view of the dam.
A large water reticulation system has been erected, which is fed by a reservoir with a capacity of 1 250 000 litres. Two productive boreholes, as well as a submersible pump, were drilled in one of the southern dams that supply water to the reservoir.
After the fundamental technical activities were completed, substantial planting began. A Podocarpus forest, consisting of evergreen trees and shrubs, is rapidly expanding, with representatives from all over the world. It is currently protected with pine nursing trees, but these will be removed in the future. Along the western perimeter of the garden, near to the nursery on Thomas Bowler Road, there is a vast collection of palms.
A collection of acacias, the South African ones of which were donated by Denzil Carr, an acknowledged expert in the South African representatives of this genus, is located further south along the same route. Over 56 000 trees have been planted to date, with a large number of them serving as nursing trees, sheltering the more desirable plants from wind, frost, the scorching sun, and designations.
Its trees include several that were developed from seed thanks to the garden’s international collaboration with other botanical institutes. Every year, some 3 000 packets of seeds are exchanged, many of which are unique and endangered, and thus may be saved from extinction distant from their natural home.
The goal is to establish and maintain a critical role as a regional centre of excellence in plant science and garden curation by providing the facilities, knowledge, and expertise required to ensure the conservation, appreciation, enjoyment, and long-term use of the Johannesburg Botanical Garden, thereby improving the quality of life for all.
History of Emmarentia Dam
The land on which the garden is situated was once part of the farm Braamfontein, which dated back to 1853. In 1886, a farmer called Louw Geldenhuys bought a portion of Braamfontein Farm and named it after Emmarentia, the woman he married in 1887.
At the end of the Anglo Boer War, in 1902, many landless farmers returned home, and Geldenhuys offered them employment to build the 7,5ha Emmarentia Dam. Great blocks of stone were brought down from the nearby Melville Koppies, which were then fitted together to construct the dam wall. It banks up water to a depth of 20 metres at the centre of the dam. The wall was built almost perpendicular and has been equal to any flood.
Those men who worked well on the dam wall were chosen to join a farm-sharing experiment Geldenhuys had initiated on his farm.
Emmarentia Dam is fed by the Westdene Spruit, the catchment of which stretches to the suburb of Westdene, to the south of the dam. In earlier times, a furrow from the stream beside the Parkview Golf Course also led water to the dam. Today this furrow no longer exists but the stormwater drains from the surrounding roads also feed the dam.
The dam and an area of land to the west of it formed an endowment from Geldenhuys to the city council for park and garden purposes. In 1952, the area was named Jan van Riebeeck Park in celebration of the tri-centenary of Van Riebeeck’s historic landing at the Cape. Then, in 1969, a resolution was passed for the building of the Johannesburg Botanical Garden on this land.
Gardens
The Chapel Garden
Designed to accommodate weddings from all cultures, the Chapel Garden is also the most affordable wedding venue in Johannesburg.
The garden often accommodates over 80 bridal parties on a weekend. It contains indigenous trees and flowers, and has benches, footpaths and an altar. It complements the Sima Eliovson Floreum, where receptions can be held, and the Rose Garden, a picturesque venue for photographs.
Designed to accommodate weddings from all cultures, the Chapel Garden is also the most affordable wedding venue in Johannesburg.
At the launch of the Chapel Garden in October 2007, people were asked to consider the environment when planning their weddings, as an environmentally friendly ceremony can contribute to the fight against global warming.
The Johannesburg Botanic Gardens is home to some of the finest plant collections in the world, including succulents, and indigenous and exotic trees. Its Rose Garden has more than 4 500 different hybrids of roses, while the Herb Garden contains a collection of culinary, cosmetic and medicinal herbs.
The Shakespeare Garden
The Shakespeare Garden is planted with herbs referred to by Shakespeare in his plays, including mint, camomile, marjoram and lavender. Each plant is labelled and includes a quote referring to the particular plant. Each year a Shakespeare festival comprising song, music and comedy is held in the garden to celebrate his birthday. The audience sits on a circular amphitheatre in very pleasant surroundings.
The Rose Garden
The Rose Garden was laid out by curator Patric Chambers in 1964 and is planted with 10 000 roses on seven sloping terraces. It is based on a Renaissance/Baroque garden, and every year an old bed is cleared and planted with the newest roses on the market. This garden is surrounded by Japanese flowering cherries, and together with the roses, it makes a breathtaking setting in spring. Wedding parties often take advantage of this splendour for their photo albums.
The Herb Garden
The Herb Garden contains the usual herbs but also a section devoted to African medicinal herbs, as well as culinary herbs, cosmetic herbs, oil-yielding herbs and herbs used for the production of dyes.
Hedge Garden
An interesting hedge garden consists of 58 different types of hedges, demonstrating those that require trimming and those growing in free form.
Arboretum
The main arboretum has a mix of Californian Redwoods, English oaks, silver birches and cork oaks from Spain and Portugal.
Succulent Garden
Experience the desert at the Botanical Garden, where a garden for succulents was opened in 2006 by City Parks MD Luther Williamson. It is designed to look like a desert with a dry river bed and uses silica sand.
There are more than 85 species of succulent plants in the garden, which was developed “100 per cent internally” by City Parks employees, according to Shonisani Munzhedzi, the General Manager of Environment Conservation Development.
The garden contains examples from the aloe, euphorbia, emblem, sansevieria and, even, the cactus family, including South Africa’s only indigenous cactus.
The succulent collection at the Johannesburg Botanical Garden consists of South African succulents as well as plants from Namibia, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, the Canary Islands, Europe, Asia and the Americas. The succulents are housed in six glasshouses – pots and pots and pots of beautiful, bulbous plants.