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Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae. Acacia brevispica is a hardy, semi-deciduous, robust, prickly, scrambling Acacia that can be trained into a large beautiful shrub. It has feathery, large, soft, bipinnate leaves with small hook thorns along the ribs on the underside. Sprays of white puffball flowers are borne from August to October. With its ornamental look it makes an ideal shrub for the larger garden, a useful addition to a security hedge or can be used as a large shrub in an informal border. Attracts birds and insects to the garden and is the host plant of the Club-tailed Emperor.

USDA Zone - 10

Season to Sow - Spring

This is a very attractive, small deciduous tree, with bright green leaves that turn to a pleasing yellowish colour in autumn. Its beauty is also complemented by its upright crown, and somewhat drooping branches, resembling a eucalypt from a distance. Bushman's tea is a shrub to small tree growing up to 10 m tall. The stem is usually straight and slender, with a narrow crown. The bark is light grey, becoming darker. It is rough and often cracked. The young stems are pinkish in colour. The leaves of this tree are opposite and are hanging. They have a leathery texture and are shiny bright green on the upper surface and paler beneath. The leaf margins are strongly serrated. Leaf stalks are short and pinkish in colour. Creamy-white to greenish minute flowers are borne in leaf axils in spring. They appear in clusters. In late October, the tree bears reddish brown, three-lobed capsules. They are 10 mm long and in late summer split to release the narrowly winged seeds. Khat is found in woodlands and on rocky outcrops. It is scattered in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape, mostly from the mist belt, moving inland. It is also found in the Western Cape, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, Mozambique and through to tropical Africa and the Arab countries. The generic name Catha is derived from the Arabic common name for this plant khat and the specific name edulis is a Greek word meaning 'edible'. It is derived from the leaves of this tree being used in teas by the Bushmen, as it contains a habit-forming stimulant. Bushman's tea is attractive in the garden. It can be planted in groups or in mixed beds where it gives height all year round and beauty in the autumn months. The plant is widely used against respiratory diseases. In tropical Africa and Arab countries it provides the habit-forming stimulant found in the leaves. The leaves are brewed as tea or chewed for this purpose. The effects include wakefulness and hyperexcitability, and suppressed hunger. In South Africa, this plant is regarded as a drug, since the drug cathinone, which is extracted from it, is listed in the Drug Act. It is however not widely used in this country, except by some groups of people from the Eastern Cape. The wood of Bushman's tea is also used for a number of purposes. It is hard and fine-grained, and therefore is good for firewood and furniture. The bark is also used as an insect repellent and the stem for fence poles.

Gardenia cornuta is a shrub or multi-branched small tree, growing 3 to 5 m tall, with erect and spreading main branches, branchlets sometimes with thick thorns, a trunk that is whitish grey, the bark is smooth, often flaking into thin peels. Leaves are smooth and crowded at the ends of twigs, usually in whorls of three, light glossy green, short-stalked, 20-30 mm long and broad, margins smooth; stipules joined to form a ring around the node. Flowers are solitary at the ends of short, rigid branches, borne in summer, November to March, white turning yellow, short-stalked, with a long, slender greenish tube, 50-60 mm, and spreading white lobes, 20-30 mm long. Fruits which are more attractive than the flowers, are more or less pear-shaped, woody, tipped with persistent remains of the calyx, glossy golden yellow, usually produced in large quantities between February and August.

USDA Zone - 10

Season to Sow - Spring

This is an evergreen shrub or small tree, 2 to 5 m in height, with a smooth, whitish, usually straight main stem up to 250 to 300 mm in diameter, and short, rigid branchlets. The leaves are carried in whorls of 3 or 4 crowded near the ends of the branchlets. They are a glossy light green, hairless, softly to thinly leathery and conspicuously veined. Simple with an entire, wavy margin, variable in size, up to 140 x 60 mm but usually smaller, mostly oval, tapering abruptly to a rounded or blunt tip while the base tapers onto the stalk. The flowers are large, showy, creamy white and heavily perfumed, particularly at night. Flowers are produced abundantly during summer (October to March), peaking in late summer (January to March).

USDA Zone - 8

Season to Sow - Spring

A small, multi-stemmed tree with a dense, rounded crown, 3-8 m high with arching branches, sometimes touching the ground. The bark is pale grey and smooth and the branchlets appear knobbly due to persistent leaf-like appendages at the base of the leaf stalk (stipules). The glossy, green leaves are usually in groups of three and crowded at the end of short branches. The leaves are spoon-shaped with a broadly rounded tip and a tapering base. They have small pockets of hair in some axils of veins (domatia) and a wavy margin. The flowers are solitary, large (up to 100 mm in diameter), and showy with a sweet scent. The trumpet-like flowers are white turning yellow with age, with a long tube that opens up into 6-9 lobes. The flowering season ranges from July to December (winter to summer) and the fruits ripen between December and April (summer to autumn), but may remain on the tree until August. The fruit is almost round, shallowly to strongly ribbed longitudinally, greyish green to white with white, slightly raised dots (lenticels). The fruit contains numerous seeds embedded in pulp.

USDA Zone - 9

Season to Sow - Spring

Sausage tree grows to 18m. Tree has a rounded crown with grey bark and cup-shaped striking dark maroon flowers with heavy yellow veining. Tree has medicinal properties.

USDA Zone - 10

Season to Sow - Spring

This is a tall, striking foliage plant related to the well-known crane flower, Strelitzia reginae. The Natal wild banana grows mostly in coastal dune vegetation and in evergreen forests near the coast. It is a common feature of the coastal vegetation from East London northwards. It grows in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and up into Mozambique towards Zimbabwe. The Natal wild banana grows up to 12m high and 4m wide. It is an evergreen tree with multi-stems that form dense clumps.