When you move to another country, there is nothing more comforting than including touches of your previous home in your new one. If you are living in Australia, the things you are familiar with can even extend to your garden. Surprisingly, you can find South African plants in Australia, despite the tight controls they have in place to preserve their own indigenous plant and animal species. If you are looking for South African plants to remind you of home, here are the plants you’ll find that are indigenous to South Africa.

The beauty of indigenous South African plants

South African is famous for its beautiful indigenous plants. Every year, people flock from all parts of the world to view the beauty of our Namaqualand when South Africa’s spring flowers cover the deserted ‘outback’ of the Namaqualand with a carpet of flowers. Table Mountain, a relatively small area, has a thriving ecosystem with more than 1500 species – more than the whole of the British Isles! The diversity of the South African countryside lends itself to a wide variety of indigenous plants and you can view the changes as you travel – from the fine grasses of the Free State Province and the scrubbed bushes of the Karoo region to dense greenery of the forests of the Garden Route and the South African inland mountain plains.

To bring the beauty of South Africa to your Australian home, here are five plants that you can add that all have their origins in South Africa:

South Africa is famous for its proteas, which are exported all over the world. The Aulax belongs to the Proteaceae family and has fine leaves and red stems with yellow flowers appearing in summer. These can grow comfortably in containers and are perfect for adding a touch of South African colour to your home.

This beautiful plant can be grown as a cut flower shrub, hedge or screen and has grey-green leaves and red tips. A bright red cone is produced in spring and the surrounding leaves turn to a bright yellow.

What name could be more South African? This medium-sized shrub has dark green leaves tinged with red on the stems, evoking the vivid red of a safari sunset. It is a rewarding, fast-growing plant and makes an excellent screen or windbreak.

If you want to add some greenery to your garden, this dense shrub is a vivid green and what’s more, it has tiny cream flowers, which are crowded in tight clusters grouped together at the tips. This is lovely landscape shrub and is found on the damp slopes and stream banks in South Africa.

Chief by name and chief by nature! This magnificent plant makes a statement with its yellow flowers surrounded by burgundy-pink and yellow leaves. It’s ideal for bringing colour to your Australian garden in later winter and early spring. It is also perfect for creating an eye-catching hedge or brightening up your home as cut flowers.

If you are a South African living abroad in Australia and would like to know more about how you can maximise your finances by completing the process of financial emigration from South Africa, accessing your South African retirement annuity and our tailor-made tax solutions for South Africans around the world, contact FinGlobal today.