A former intern at the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden (SUBG) will be the first woman curator of this garden in its 124 years of existence.
Annerie Senekal, the new curator of the SUBG, ran the garden as acting curator for nine months, after the passing of Dr Donovan Kirkwood in 2025, before being promoted to curator in July.
“There are a lot of female botanists and they’ve been around a long time. They don’t always get the recognition they deserve,” said Senekal, who originally began working as an intern for SUBG in 2020, and then became the first assistant curator in 2023.
Pictured in her office, Annerie Senekal, the first woman to lead the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden (SUBG), in office. She joined as an intern in 2020, when she was still studying a BSc in biodiversity and ecology, and became curator of the garden on 1 July.PHOTO: Yusuf Kosadia-Hassen
Senekal’s strategy
Senekal said the late Dr Donovan Kirkwood’s five year plan for the SUBG expired last year and that she is in the process of finalising her new five year plan which will run until 2030.
The curator detailed her 5-year strategy for the gardens – rooted in conservation, research and education, wider collaboration, satellite collections, and applied research that feeds work on the ground.
“Another one is to contribute to species recovery. Species recovery is when you try to get a species that is going towards extinction back on a positive track. So that’s not just growing them in a garden but trying to find ways to put them back.”
“We potentially have the best conservation plant collections in the country, in terms of quality, not quantity,” said Senekal. “We’re very strict with how we curate them.”
Senekal said SUBG sits in the Cape Florestic Region — the smallest and most diverse plant kingdom on Earth — and that the garden grows threatened species, with the intention of integrating them into the wild.
“The greatest challenge was navigating the loss of Dr Donovan Kirkwood,” Senekal said. “Beyond losing a respected leader, I lost a mentor who played a pivotal role in shaping my passion for plant conservation.”
A greenhouse at the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden. Curator, Annerie Senekal said the garden curates what may be the country’s best conservation plant collections, judged on quality, and that it grows threatened species to return them to the wild. PHOTO: Yusuf Kosadia-Hassen
Rooted in a woman
According to Senekal, the roots of SUBG was a teaching garden, founded by Dr Augusta Vera Duthie, an SU botany lecturer, in 1902.
Dr Duthie began cultivating plants for her botany lectures at SU, then known as Victoria College.
In the same year, 1902, she founded SU’s botany department at the age of 20. She later earned her Doctor of Science degree in 1929, said Senekal.
Senekal said that the plants Dr Duthie grew for her class led the university to establish SUGB. Every curator since then has been a man.
“There are nine women and two men working at the garden,” said Lerato Mokoena, a horticulture intern, who has worked at SUBG for over a year.
Senekal said that the garden, mostly run by women, is not policy, but shows an increasing trend of women in botany.
“I believe it’s very inspirational and I’m very happy for her,” said Phindile Ngobese, an SUBG horticultural assistant. “I feel very motivated and positive that these opportunities are still open to us as women.”
Stellenbosch University students have free admittance to the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden, which has its roots in a teaching garden founded in 1902. PHOTO: Yusuf Kosadia-Hassen