Useful plants grown and maintained in domestic gardens of the Capricorn district, Limpopo Province, South Africa

Abstract

The objective of this study was to document useful plants in urban domestic gardens in the Limpopo Province, South Africa. Data on plant use categories of urban domestic gardens in the under-developed areas of the Limpopo Province were collected by means of interviews and personal observations between May and October 2012.A total of 126 taxa belonging to 110 genera and 62 families were recorded from 62 urban domestic gardens. More than half of the species (52.4%) recorded in the surveyed domestic gardens are exotic to South Africa and 9.5 percent of the total garden flora are “indigenous cultivated”, introduced in the Limpopo Province from other provinces of South Africa. The dominant plant use category in domestic gardens was ornamental, followed by fruit trees. The present study revealed that plants grown and maintained in urban domestic gardens play a vital role in the livelihoods of the people of Limpopo Province.