I’m writing this post in Cape Town the home of the oldest European garden in Africa. Known as The Company’s Garden it lies near the heart of the modern city just four hundred metres south of where Jan van Riebeeck and his party from the Dutch East India Company landed on Table Bay in 1652 with plans to establish the first European foothold at the Cape. Apart from a fort for defence and shelter, laying out the garden was their first priority. But, of course, that was for food not flowers.
Transformed from purely a utilitarian garden to a much more horticulturally interesting one in the 18thc it became one of the most significant gardens in the world, before sinking into decline under British rule in the 19thc when much of the original ground was appropriated for grand institutional buildings.
What survives today, although listed as a national monument, is a much smaller modern public park but it still contains many historic trees and the re-imagining of a small fraction of the original Dutch kitchen garden. And as we’ll see in another post soon it has been the inspiration behind one of grandest new gardens in the world.
The Garden History Blog 
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