One of the main reasons to visit Nelspruit, the Lowveld
National Botanical Garden lies just outside of town, a beautiful 159 hectare
space dominated by rugged, rocky river scenery, and home to over 600 naturally
occurring plant species, and a further 2000 that have been introduced to the
garden.
The Lowveld Botanical Garden is all about the two rivers
that run through it; that fashion the garden with a unique quality of its own.
The Crocodile River enters the garden with a tremendous rush, gushing through a
narrow, pot-holed solid rock gorge, whilst its counterpart, the Nels River,
cascades down a waterfall from the west - the two content to merge in a
somewhat more gentle pool. The river banks are dominated by evergreen forest
belts, and the eastern bank of the Crocodile River is a tropical African
rainforest, representative of the rapidly diminishing rain forests in central
and west Africa, and a world first for the Lowveld Garden.
Aside from this, the Lowveld Botanical Garden is alive with
trees and creates a wonderful haven for visitors. Around 650 tree species
indigenous to South Africa dominate the garden, interspersed with ancient
cycads and a variety of shrubs. The garden is dominated by a vegetation type
known as Sour Lowveld Bushveld that is a link between the true Lowveld and the
escarpment, due mainly to the garden’s altitude. There is rarely a dramatic
contrast between winter and summer on the Lowveld because of the evergreen
nature of trees and shrubs, especially in the riparian zones on the banks of
the two rivers.
