Tara Dalton’s new book explores a more considered approach to gardening along the Cape Peninsula’s wild and biodiverse coastline.

Along the Cape Peninsula, gardening comes with a particular set of challenges. Salt-laden winds, sandy soils, water scarcity and increasingly hot, dry conditions can make cultivating a garden here feel like an exercise in persistence. However, for garden designer and author Tara Dalton, these conditions are not something to overcome. They are an invitation to garden differently.

Her new book, Cape Peninsula Coastal Gardening: A Little Bit Of Wild, explores what it means to garden in one of the world’s most biodiverse floral regions – and makes a case for working with the landscape instead of against it.

The book combines practical gardening advice with photography, botanical knowledge, and stories from gardens along the Cape Peninsula. Its central idea is simple: a garden can be more than a collection of plants. It can form part of a much larger living system.

For Dalton, that means looking closer to home when deciding what to plant.