How Cape Town volunteers are turning CBD spaces into urban oases

Inner City Cape Town green initiative Green planters and trees line a street in Cape Town’s CBD as part of efforts to create a greener, more pedestrian-friendly inner city.

From stolen planters to the daily challenge of keeping plants alive through summer, a community-led greening project is working to make Cape Town’s central business district more welcoming, with 140 volunteers helping bring greenery into shared public spaces.

Mission for Inner City CT says its Green Squad has grown from more than 50 volunteers at launch 18 months ago to 140 today. The initiative has put 2,100 plants in the ground and planted 35 trees across the CBD.

The aim is to create places where commuters, office workers and restaurant staff can stop, rest or read, while encouraging people to take greater ownership of the spaces they share.

“If we recreate the spaces, everybody can come in, take a break there, you can come and stand there, you can come and read a book there,” said urban gardener David Moses, who helps maintain planters across the CBD.

With Garden Day highlighting the value of plants and green spaces, the project offers a look at how volunteers are working to improve the everyday urban environment.

Vincent Truter, greening lead at Mission for Inner City Cape Town, said the initiative was about more than planting trees and flowers. It was also about improving the experience of people moving through the city, including commuters travelling between the station and their workplaces in the Foreshore.

“We’re not doing for, we’re doing with,” he said.

Truter said some early planters had to be replanted four times after plants and planters were stolen or damaged.

The team responded by involving delivery-bike riders and people spending time in the square in decisions about what should be planted. Truter said this helped build a connection between people and the public spaces they share.

The greening effort forms part of a wider push to make the CBD more pedestrian-friendly through planting, seating, lighting and public art.

Maintaining the greenery remains a challenge, particularly during Cape Town’s warmer months.

Truter identified water as one of the biggest difficulties. The city receives most of its rainfall in winter, while plants need more water during summer.

Moses said regular watering was essential, while covering the soil helped retain moisture. Mission for Inner City CT says he tends to more than 58 planters every day.

A specially designed mobile watering unit allows Moses to transport water from a point near the river to planters in areas without street-level pipes or outlets.

The organisation says the unit is being studied as an international benchmark for urban stewardship.

Moses said improving neglected spaces could encourage office workers, restaurant employees and others to use them for breaks or reading, rather than avoid areas affected by litter and dumping.

Truter said community participation was not intended to replace municipal services, but to complement them by encouraging shared responsibility for public spaces.

The initiative is also seeking private-sector support.

At an Inner City Voices: Green Edition gathering, property developers and people working in greening discussed opportunities to collaborate. One developer offered to sponsor irrigation for a planned pocket park on Lower Long Street.

The challenge now is to sustain the progress made, keep the plants alive and ensure Cape Town’s public spaces remain welcoming to the people who use them.