Those of us who scour the globe for new plants for the garden — whether collecting seeds while dangling from a Himalayan cliff or cruising the pages of a favorite mail-order catalog — are always looking for the next great problem solver. Sure, we occasionally get sidetracked by the variegated, weeping, dwarf, and contorted whatchamacallits. But we usually come around to the original task — finding the perfect plant to fill that problem spot where nothing seems to want to grow.
In many parts of the gardening country, that problem spot tends to be the hottest, the driest, and the most Mars-like spot in the garden.
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When we look for new plants, some of us focus on natives — however we define them. Some have a hankering for the exotics from Europe, Asia, and beyond. But a place few people think of as a potential source of good garden plants is Africa. And for good reason.
As continents go, Africa is not big on winter. Sure, you can get a bit of snow on the slopes of Tanzania’s Mt Kilimanjaro. Heck, the record-low temperature for the Sahara Desert is well below 20 degrees Fahrenheit! But still, the vast majority of the African continent specializes in hot — hot and humid or hot and dry. And that hot and dry is where our interest sits for today’s purposes.