Kirstenbosch

by Maureen Miller

Sawubona, December 2007

Nestled on the eastern slopes of Cape Town’s iconic Table Mountain, Kirstenbosch is one of the world’s best known botanical gardens. This exceptional site with its mountain backdrop of incalculable beauty welcomes visitors with their first steps through the gate, and it’s almost impossible to reconcile the wild and overgrown state of Kirstenbosch in 1913 with the pristine park it is today.

A man of vision was Professor (of Botany) Harold Pearson, who in 1913 accepted the position of honorary director at Kirstenbosch, tasked with the development of the garden. Against almost insurmountable obstacles, he started in the centre and established what today is known as “The Dell”, planting his collection of cycads and establishing a cool and peaceful haven in the centre of the garden, and a lush, long sloping lawn. Little did he know that 90 years later this lawn would be used to provide an unparalleled and ongoing festival of music and beauty for Cape Town and its visitors.

“The hills are alive with the sound of music”, and nowhere is this more true than in Kirstenbosch on a summer Sunday evening, which every year from December to March echoes with the music of a variety of local and international concert performers. The Summer Sunset concerts have become a tradition in Cape Town, and when the South Easter is howling on the other side of the mountain, pack your picnic basket and a bottle of wine, and head for the Garden. Whatever your taste in music, the sheer beauty of a majestic sunset behind Table Mountain, the rising moon and the stars lighting the sky, the ambient sounds of the odd bird settling down for the night, will leave you breathless. Get there early (gates open at 3 pm), to establish your blanket-space, and then relax and savour this special and unique atmosphere.

The most popular summer concert at Kirstenbosch is the festival of light and sound at the annual Christmas carols by candlelight concerts. Visitors come from far and wide for atmosphere, the unique vibe and setting, with stars and candles vying with each other to provide light, peace and beauty in the spirit of Christmas. New Year’s Eve, too, is celebrated at Kirstenbosch with a concert, this time starting a little later, so that Auld Lang Syne can be sung with the orchestra and the new year welcomed. Book early for these; they’re very popular indeed.

Cape Town music lovers don’t sit home dreaming on a winter’s day, they head back to Kirstenbosch, this time indoors at the Silvertree Restaurant with a roaring fire, a glass of wine and a bowl of soup, and, of course, a Winter Warmers concert on Sundays, with hot local music. Here they can look out over the wide balcony to the altered face of the mountain backdrop and the garden, changed from its summer colour to the quieter but equally beautiful browns, greens and soothing, muted winter shades.

Although today’s Kirstenbosch carefully appears to have been developed almost informally, it is a huge, multifaceted enterprise, and the symbiosis of world-renowned botanical research with the living display of indigenous flora and fynbos against spectacular Table Mountain has matured into a tourist mecca possibly unique in the world. A whistle-stop day tour of the gardens will take you through one of the three entrance gates, where you’ll find the Garden’s souvenir shops, the Botanical Society’s bookshops, coffee shops and restaurants.

The garden is a big place, and is divided into convenient areas, so if you have only a day to explore its wonders, plan your visit carefully, it’s almost impossible to take in all 36 ha of cultivated gardens in a day. Whether your interest lies in restio grasses, plants for medicinal purposes or the incredible Zimbabwean sculptures exhibited as part of the garden layout, you’ll find it by strolling around this immaculate world of plants. The various areas are well signposted, and should you feel like striding up the mountain, you can follow Jan Smuts’ track to Skeleton Gorge and onwards, or take the slightly less arduous contour paths and enjoy the forested areas.
For the more sedate and languid, or less fit, a golf cart leaving every hour provides a tour round the garden and for the physically challenged, wheelchairs can be booked. The Braille Trail is a garden for the mind’s eye, and the fragrance garden is just that, a treasure-house of scent and colour.

There’s a kind of hush in this setting of peace and tranquillity, with its unparalleled views of an awe-inspiring mountain. Pearson’s epitaph: “If ye seek his monument, look around you” on a granite Celtic cross near the Dell, bears testament to his vision, energy and foresight, but he could not have foreseen the ultimate blend of mountain, music and peace that make this garden sing.