Herbal Eye Candy Although herbs are mostly grown for practical reasons such as for culinary, medicinal and cosmetic uses, there are herbal plants with such attractive attributes that you don’t really have the heart to chow or chop them up! ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ lifts the spirit The purple cone flower (Echinacea purpurescens) has been used for […]
medicinal plants
Crinum macowanii
Sabie lily Crinums are members of the family Amaryllidaceae and have a very wide distribution in the tropics of Asia, Africa and America, extending into the warm temperate parts of both hemispheres. There are about 100 species; more than half of these occur in Africa, with some 23 found in southern Africa. Crinums range from […]
Carpobrotus edulis
Sour fig (suurvy) No garden should be without this extremely valuable indigenous medicinal plant, which originally occurred in sandy areas along the Western and Eastern Cape coasts, but is now commonly grown in many parts of South Africa as it is hardy, easy to grow and a proven stabiliser for dunes and embankments. This well-known […]
Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Tuscan Blue’
Tuscan Blue Rosemary Formal gardens have been fashionable around the world since the times of early civilisations and still today they remain popular, especially with the resurgence of Tuscan and Victorian landscape styles. One of the key components of these formal designs is low, clipped hedges that edge the geometric patterns or shapes. These are […]
Amaranthus caudatus
Love-lies-bleeding, pendant amaranth,tassel flower, velvet flower, foxtail amaranth, and quilete A much-loved, ancient food, the amaranth has literally become a worldwide weed, and it is a most important medicinal plant too. Now in the midsummer heat you’ll notice tough little seedlings of one or two of the many amaranth varieties coming up in your garden; often […]