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About Living Desert Plants
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Living Desert Plants is a home-based specialist plant nursery focusing on rare succulents and cacti. We place our focus on succulents that are not generally available in large retail nurseries. Much of our range is sourced and propagated before being made available. At Living Desert Plants, you will find the weird and wonderful that you cannot find easily elsewhere.

What started as a tiny collection on a single table, is now a fully-fledged home-based nursery. This is the LDP story.

This venture found its roots as a hobby-turned-business created by Harry Lewis in early 2018. Harry was able to get the nursery up and running using valuable knowledge gained from his years as a nature conservationist. His respect and admiration for nature is at the core of LDP’s ethos, and this extends to the plants in our care. Whether it’s plants for sale or plants in our personal collections, we give them the individual attention they deserve, and provide them with the highest possible standard of care.

All our plants are legal, nursery grown specimens, and we have been certified by Cape Nature as a registered Grower and Seller of Protected Flora since 21/05/2018.

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Latest blog posts & videos

Of Twists & Turns: What are crested plants?

Why do plants crest? The exact cause of cresting, also known as fasciation, can vary, and may include genetic mutations, viruses, or physical damage to the growth point. To understand cresting and crested plants, one must first understand the basics of how a plant grows. Plants consist of a variety of different tissues, and these . . .

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How to identify the genders of Euphorbia obesa

Most plants on Earth are genderless. Both the male and female flowers, or parts of the flowers, occur on the same plant. Any plant that exhibits this characteristic is called monoecious, or the more familiar term hermaphroditic. This is a survival mechanism which allows these plants to reproduce with any partner. For some plants, like . . .

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Rare Plant Fair Calendar 2025

Rare Plant Fairs in 2025 Living Desert Plants will be attending a variety of events in 2025, including the Tokara Rare Plant Fair, Calitzdorp Succulent Festival and more. Living Desert Plants is primarily an online nursery, though we do have stalls at a variety of events throughout the year. If you want to meet us . . .

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What do you need to know about caudiciforms?

What classifies a succulent as a Caudiciform? Caudiciform, which means ‘like a stem’, is derived from the Latin word caudex, meaning ‘tree trunk’. As the name implies, these plants have something that resembles a stem but looks a bit different than the norm. Specifically, caudiciforms have a caudex, which is an enlarged, bulbous stem or . . .

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The best potting soil for your succulents & cacti

Succulents and cacti are renowned for their resilience and survivability. However, these plants will only thrive in specific soil conditions that mimic their natural habitat. Putting together the correct potting soil is essential for nurturing your plants. In this article, we will dig into the main soil mediums that we use at Living Desert Plants, . . .

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Rare Plant Fair Calendar 2024

Living Desert Plants is primarily an online nursery, though we do have stalls at a variety of events throughout the year. If you want to meet us in person, then this is the list of rare plant fairs to attend for 2024! Plant & Swap Festival We will have a stall at the Plant & . . .

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- Henti G

Excellent value for money and strong healthy plants!

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Plants are our passion and we love talking about them. Don’t hesitate to reach out to the Living Desert Plants team if you need assistance!

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