We use plants to facilitate recovery & reconnection
Living Roots is a social enterprise that provides water-wise, indigenous vegetation, sustainable corporate gardening services, as well as as training and consultancy services. The social enterprise also creates work opportunities for U-turn champions.
OUR STORY
Living Roots provides indigenous plants, gardening services, and training. It is also a social enterprise that understands an ecosystem is 360 degrees and incorporates relationships between people and environment.
The social enterprise is run by staff who are formerly homeless, providing work opportunities with learnership or internship to grow knowledge and work-readiness for independent employment in the green sector.
All profit from Living Roots goes to work-opportunities and to support U-turn Homeless Ministries. When you do business with Living Roots, you are sowing seeds for change. You are restoring lives and landscapes.
Our services
Indigenous Nursery
We grow water-wise and hardy South African indigenous plants from good stock. We provide excellent service with wholesale prices for NPOs, City and governmnet leadership, business and members of the public.
Corporate Garden Service
Community Organic Waste
City of Cape Town landfills are overflowing and will soon no longer be accepting organic waste. Drop off your waste and support all the work we do!
Greening Packages
We offer consultations, workshops and training on water-wise indigenous gardening, as well as team-building “planting days” for businesses, Improvement Districts, Community Groups, Eco-Clubs and more.
In conjunction Julia and her team we had community workshops to teach community volunteers how to propogate plants and how to grow from cuttings… we were able to plant out some of the cuttings from the community volunteers into the public spaces… which has allowed us to add the open corridors of the indigenous fynbos of the area… it’s a very useful way to get social impact.”
Meet Our Team
PROJECT Manager
ND NATURE CONSERVATION
Meet Julia. She is a conservation horticulturist and trainer with more than 12 years’ experience in ecological restoration and indigenous plant production. She has worked for SANBI; Kirstenbosch, City of Cape Town Biodiversity, and the Millennium Seed Bank Project.
CHAMPIONS
ON-JOB-TRAINEES
The Champions are formely homeless, and on the U-turn work-readiness programme which provides a work opportunity with on-the-job training, formal skills training, ongoing therapy and relapse prevention.
PROJECT FOREMAN
U-TURN GRADUATE
Meet Dimitri. He is the foreman at Living Roots. He graduated from the U-turn Programme in 2021. He says, “My passion has always been working with plants and now I get to work with Champs, who are growing better roots as well.”