It was established in 1845 by Ralph Henry Arderne, a timber merchant originally from Cheshire, England.

[5] The ponds in the garden are the source of the Black River which then runs underground beneath Main Road and the railway line before emerging as a canal.

As a timber merchant living in the Cape Colony in the late 1800s, Ralph Henry Arderne (1802-1885) was in the unique position to trade indigenous plant seedlings in exchange for the exotic seedlings, shrubs, and perennial plants carried by ships that had stopped to replenish their supplies.

In 1845, he acquired the section of land (part of the old Stellenberg Estate) where he planted a garden, built a home and called it "The Hill".

Henry Mathew Arderne (1834-1914), Ralph's oldest son, took over the garden in the early part of the twentieth century.