Company’s Garden

Company’s Garden is a park in central Cape Town and the oldest garden in South Africa.  It dates back to the 1650s when produce was grown here to replenish ships sailing around the Cape.  Water from the Molteno Dam keeps it fertile.  The ground was first prepared by the master gardener, Hendrik Boom on 29 April 1652.  By 1658 it contained examples of virtually every garden plant in Europe and India.  After 1680 it was laid out as a beautiful garden by Simon van der Stel (1639-1712), the first Governor of the Dutch Cape Colony and much celebrated by famous writers who visited it.  Today it contains the oldest cultivated pear tree in South Africa dating from about 1652, a rose garden designed in 1929, a fish pond, the Denville Wood Memorial Garden, an aviary and it is the site for several of the Iziko museums.