Our History

The company was started by our present Managing Director, Mr Robert Stodel, who worked on the famous flower bulb farms during his school holidays and over weekends.

He studied horticulture at high school in Aalsmeer, Holland. After immigrating to our beautiful country, South Africa, he worked for a short time as advisory to many flower farms in the Cape, specializing in flower bulbs and soils. Soon he realized that there was a place in the market for the importation of flower bulbs and started selling flower bulbs from door to door and from the Parade in Cape Town.

He also started to mail a 6-page price list to homeowners throughout the Cape. Soon, Stodels Flower bulbs became the biggest flower bulb retailer in South Africa posting nearly 600 000 36-page full-colour catalogues and importing up to 20 million flower bulbs from Holland per year.

Customers demanded not only flower bulbs but also associated products. Therefore, the first one-stop retail garden center was opened in Kenilworth in 1968. In 1973 Stodels, Bellville was opened. Soon we became a pioneer in the horticultural retail industry and are proud of the fact that we changed the garden center scene throughout the country.

Till this day we are the biggest horticultural retailer in the Western Cape.