Garden Route Indigenous Nursery — Local services in George

I lived in George for many years. I used to love hanging with my friends here. It was always beautiful, and the chap who previously ran the place, Dane, did an excellent job at keeping the place running. I was recently back in George for a holiday. Firstly, to my shock, they are charging people to go in. Now, this could be understandable, if the money was actually used to keep up the gardens, which, clearly it isn't. Dead brush everywhere, wildlife is almost totally gone. It looks messy and untidy. Almost like it's not actually being cared for. Not to mention, if you want to charge entry to a place, atleast have card facilities available (people generally don't carry cash nowadays) instead, I had to walk around, while my lunch got cold, trying to locate some lady, who looked like she was on a permanent lunch break, to pay on a card machine in an office hidden in some backwards building. Once that was finally done, my lunch was cold, milkshake melted and I just didn't have a good time. Whoever is running the place now, either do a better job, or allow someone who can to do it, because I will not be returning to the gardens anytime soon,...

The George Botanical Gardens is a popular place for picnics and is located near the center of George towards the mountains. There is an entrance fee for non-members of R20 and kids under 12 enter free. If you want to take a table in (picnics/events) there is an additional cost of R30 for the table. They also have a small venue next to Marshmallow Cafe that can be rented for R100 an hour and you can make use of the Cafe's menu or take your own snacks. Note though you will need to arrange ahead of time. The Gardens are smaller than most, but boast a wide variety of plants and nice walkig trails. Some are paved making it wheelchair accessible, but there are some that are not paved and isn't wheelchair accessible or friendly. There are public bathrooms within the Gardens. Lastly, this is also the startig point of the George Parkrun, a very popular event...

Our visit was a disappointing experience. Whilst 15 Rand is inexpensive for admission I did expect more. The signposting within the gardens is terrible and I couldn't find any overall map of where to walk so we spent most of the visit wandering rather aimlessly around. The employees we saw looked disinterested and the young man who took our our admission money was unfriendly and unhelpful. There was an abundance of weeds among most of the display plants and a large building claiming to be a conference center which was deserted. We were staying in George so it wasn't too much of a wasted journey but I wouldn't recommend adding this to your itinerary if you doing the...