A botanical garden in Cape Town prides itself on being one of the most beautiful gardens in the African continent. By revamping its gift shop, the curator and conservationists who run the garden say it now has one of THE most beautiful gift shops in the world. Rene Del Carme reports.  

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden - situated on the Eastern slopes of Cape Town's Table Mountain - was established in 1913 to conserve and promote the indigenous floral heritage of Southern Africa.

It attracts around a million visitors a year, most of whom stop by the popular Kirstenbosch Gift Shop.

PHILIPPA HANCOCK BRAND MANAGER, KIRSTENBOSCH BOTANICAL GARDEN "We often have compliments from our customers to say, they've never seen anything quite like this shop anywhere else in the world. We have stores at Cape Point. We have stores at Robben Island, at the Waterfront Two Oceans Aquarium. And we want to be able to offer the visitors something unique from every destination."

PHILIP STIEKEMA ARCHITECT "We were kinda challenged by Kirstenbosch's latest addition, which was the boomslang, which is this very magnificent walking bridge, which takes you into the canopy of, the kind of forest canopy of the big trees. So, we poked a little bit of the store out into the garden. And brought a little bit of the garden into the store. So, that's kinda what drove it. We kinda wanted to inhabit this very big space with what you might have in your garden. Sheds, garden sheds. And there's a treehouse for the kids."

RENE DEL CARME CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA "The aim is for tourists and visitors to purchase products which are unique to the iconic Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden. A wide variety of products depicting the King Protea or the strelizia emblem, the indigenous fynbos or other floral-inspired themes."

PHILIPPA HANCOCK BRAND MANAGER, KIRSTENBOSCH BOTANICAL GARDEN "We've got beautiful botanical-inspired clothing, very easy to wear, what we call leisure wear type of clothing, we've got destination clothing and T-shirts, we've got lovely soft home wears, from tea towels to cushion covers, with beautiful motifs of the garden and then we have lovely hand-painted ceramics from guinea fowls to the birds, and jewelry. We've really got an endless selection."

And anyone who shops here will definitely be able to take a little piece of South Africa and Africa, back home with them.

PHILIPPA HANCOCK BRAND MANAGER, KIRSTENBOSCH BOTANICAL GARDEN "So they've done the walk in the gardens, they've experienced the gardens. And at the end of their visit to Kirstenbosch, they come into the shop. They must see what they've experienced. And they must be able to buy something that is a memory."

Rene Del Carme, CGTN, Kirstenbosch Gardens, near Cape Town, South Africa.