Garden Tool

South
African
Plaza

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  Hear from the Curator

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Hear from the Curator

Hear Panayoti Kelaidis, Senior Curator and Director of Outreach, describe how Denver Botanic Gardens tests plants from the South African steppe region for Colorado gardens.






Discover plants from this region growing in the South African Plaza, a garden showcasing South Africa's rich plant diversity, and highlighting the complexity and fragility of the country's environment.



A grassland landscape of South Africa.

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  African blue lily (Agapanthus campanulatus)

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African blue lily (Agapanthus campanulatus)



Native to: South Africa
Bloom time: June through July

Native to the South African Steppe, this plant is surprisingly cold-tolerant given that most Agapanthus plants are tropical. The African blue lily does best at lower elevations here in Colorado.

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  Ice plant (Delosperma spp. and cvs.)

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Ice plant (Delosperma spp. and cvs.)



Native to: South Africa
Bloom time: June through September

If you have gardener friends in California, you may have heard that ice plants can be invasive, but not to worry. Although it shares a common name with its aggressive California relative (Carpobrotus edulis) the Delosperma ice plant is well-behaved in Colorado gardens.

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  Lesotho lily (Gladiolus saundersii)

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Lesotho lily (Gladiolus saundersii)



Native to: South Africa
Bloom time: July through August

Gladiolus plants can get top-heavy and floppy in the garden, but this wild and truly hardy variety stands tall. In its native South Africa, it is pollinated by sunbirds—the African counterpart to the hummingbirds of the Americas.