We are a little nuts about aloe here at SmartHerbals, but can you blame us? This gorgeous plant adorns our gardens and heals inside and out.

As someone with seasonal allergies it is a little alarming how vigorously male mulberry send their pollen out into the world!

Spekbook are famous for their carbon capturing ability, but in your garden their main function is to make you smile - it’s only the thickets that capture all that carbon!

Whether it’s a Christmas tree or mistletoe, Christmas features plants. In the northern hemisphere, Christmas falls in the darkest week of the year and only a few types of plants are green. Here in South Africa, that’s usually not a problem, but we still love decorating our homes with poinsettia and Christmas trees.

The world eats a lot of citrus! This family of brightly-coloured, juicy fruit have been cultivated for 4000 years.

Did you know there are succulents in rainforests? The showy holiday cactuses are pollinated by hummingbirds, hence the upside down flowers.

Tulips, the flower that made the Netherlands famous, not just for the beautiful fields of blooming bulbs, but for the tulip mania of the 1630s, are actually edible!

Onions are cultivated in their millions, but did you know they were used by the Egyptians in the process of preparing mummies?

Did you know, coconuts are actually smooth-skinned and brightly coloured? We normally see them peeled, but the part we eat is like the inside of a cherry pit!

Brassica, or the cabbage family, take up a lot of space on the grocery section. Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and more all belong to this rather unusual species which looks completely different from one cultivar to the next!

Watermelons have been around for a long time! Besides the seeds found in King Tut’s tomb, paintings of this unmistakeable fruit have also been found in ancient Egyptian ruins.