History tells us that bonsai were first displayed in South Africa at the British Empire Exhibition held in Johannesburg in 1933, where Asian exhibitors displayed their trees. Thereafter, mention is made of soldiers, returning home from the east after the Second World War, expressing interest in the beautiful trees they had seen in Japan.

by Adam Harrower

I'm sure that all have heard it said that we , in the Western Cape, live in one of the six floristic kingdoms of the world, I can not emphasize enough how true this is and how blessed we are. Studying Botany at UCT, has brought me face to face with this tremendous wealth of beauty and diversity, which is matched in very few other places on the planet. The other thing is that South Africa has such a variety of flora types, ranging from the fynbos to forest to grassland etc., which is echoed in the diversity of species. In terms of bonsai use, we have been relatively biased towards exotic plants, probably because most of the literature on bonsai is from overseas and deals with tried and tested species that are sure to be fail-proof. The problem is that many of these species are often difficult, if not impossible, to get hold of and often do not like our climate so we need to look to the next best option, which in our case happens to be an extremely good one - our indigenous plant material.