Beyond water-wise Plant a resilient no-water garden
South Africa is a dry country, but one would never think so when looking at our show gardens that are still dominated, in the great British tradition, by lush summer-growing and -flowering horticultural plants.
In a “normal” year, the average annual rainfall across South Africa is 497mm – well below the world average of 860mm. A narrow strip along our eastern and southern coastlines receives a fair bit of rain that is more evenly spread throughout the year, but rainfall over nearly all of the interior and the western parts of the country is strongly seasonal. About 65% of the country receives less than 500mm of rain annually, and 21% receives less than 200mm. The only really generous rain falls high in the Drakensberg and Cape mountains.
Compounding our status as a dry country, water demand from a
