Our Story

Indigenus, founded in 2014, is the brainchild of Cape Town local, Peter van der Post. At the beginning of his career, whilst working in roto-moulding, Peter noticed a lack of high design planters in the market and the vision to produce the most beautiful, original and desirable planters began to grow. Over the past 8 years the Indigenus team have collaborated with South Africa’s top designers to create planters that are art pieces in their own right. 2022 has seen exciting collaborations further afield with internationally renowned designers and collaborators.

In line with our sustainability and quality luxury objectives, we are constantly striving to make planters for life and not just for a few seasons. It has taken years of refinement, many valuable lessons learnt and, ultimately, setting up our own world class factory for in house manufacturing to be able to ensure that the planters are of the highest quality. All materials are sustainably sourced and the planters are made by hand. It is this craftmanship that puts Indigenus in a league of its own.

Each range of planters is unique and illustrates the impact that beautiful sculptural planters have on architecture and landscapes. The planters close connection to the earth is expressed through a stable and grounded design, made with beautiful natural materials and evoking an underlying story of our relationship with the natural world.

Indigenus is focused on collaboration with the world’s top designers and artists. We are committed to constant refinement and a willingness to be courageous, curious and experimental with natural materials and new designs. We have built solid distributor networks and relationships that we are committed to maintaining and growing globally. We are proud of our roots as an African luxury brand with a global footprint.

Sustainability

We believe that buying fewer, better things is at the heart of our company’s contribution to creating a sustainable future. One of the reasons we produce all our planters in our own factory is so that we can constantly improve quality and work towards creating planters for life and not just for a season. To us, this move away from trends or ‘fast fashion’ is the essence of moving forward in the most sustainable way. More specifically, our planters are made of Glass Reinforced Concrete (GRC). The manufacturing of GRC does not utilize or emit volatile organic compounds (VOC). This GRC is also 20 times stronger and more durable than ordinary concrete. We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint by carefully selecting sustainable raw materials and processes. For instance, almost 50% of the GRC formulation is made of naturally occurring earth oxides.

The heart and soul of our business is our team of artisans. The factory is positioned within a nature conservation area in Muizenberg, Cape Town. It is built around a large central wetland and is home to incredible fauna and flora. We have a family of otters that watch us curiously from the banks.

Our wooden planters are made from Iroko (African teak), a Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified hard timber sourced from sustainably harvested suppliers. The dense, hard-wearing wood is high in natural resins and oils. Iroko, an African hardwood with a high oil content is very durable and resistant to both rot and insect attack. In addition, all planters are transported in recyclable corrugated boxes and all the liners are made of recyclable polyethylene. We are committed to continuously evaluating more sustainable practices and embracing them as we grow.

Our process

Made in South Africa by Artisans and Craftsmen All Indigenus planters and raw materials are sourced and manufactured in South Africa. Indigenus supports the creation of jobs in Southern Africa where unemployment runs at around 30%. Many of our employees feed many more mouths than just their immediate family and every time we export a planter we secure employment, create more jobs in South Africa and earn valuable foreign currency. Indigenus planters are made by a slow handmade process. Some of our planters that use both wood and stone require up to 20 man hours each to manufacture. Although we use the best tooling available to produce our products and the longest wearing natural materials, our process to create light-weight, natural, earthy products that are built to last a lifetime requires considerable craftmanship, time and skill to manufacture.

Materials

We use a 30 year old recipe for our GRC (glass re-enforced concrete) using a multi-skin approach that includes an outer face coat containing local aggregates, sands, oxides and cements all sourced from Africa and laid up and finished by hand. Once moulded they require delicate finishing skills to bring out the natural imperfections and detailing in the stone, whilst removing the join lines and bringing out an earthy and long lasting finish in line with our ethos. Beneath the beautiful exterior layer lies an extremely strong back coat made with concrete, strengtheners and alkaline glass fibres. The recipe makes the material over 20 times stronger than regular concrete which in conjunction with our liner system allows us to make our large planters relatively light. Our FSC certified African Iroko/Teak which has been used to make boats from for centuries, is hand cut and turned and each segment of wood has four stainless steel screws binding it to the next making these pieces able to last a lifetime.