Sisters on Adderley

Alison Snyders & Karin Lipari

Karen’s face lights up when I ask her what her favourite flower is. “Stargazers,” she tells me with eyes that soften and sparkle, almost as if there were actual stars gazing out of them. “The reason why I love them is because, when they’re closed, you watch them open up. You can literally see it every day. It’s like a process of opening and that’s what I love about it.”

By Dan Charles

The Stargazer Lily is one of the most recognisable flowers that you might find in a cut flower bouquet or a garden. The flower was born from the desire of a plant breeder in the 1970s named Leslie Woodriff to bring to life a type of lily that was bolder and far less demure than the typical Oriental lilies of that era that hung their heads toward the ground. She felt as if those lilies were hiding their beauty from those who would wish to admire them and so she bred a lily that bloomed upwards to bask in the light above it and for others to bask in its beauty. Karen is a lot like that as well. When you ask her about flowers or the history of the Trafalgar Place Flower Market that has been operating on Adderley Street in Cape Town for over 150 years – the place where her and her sister Alison have been trading as the famous Sisters on Adderley for over 35 years – she opens up and speaks animatedly and with a fiery passion that cuts through the cacophony of cars and people bustling past their stall in the frantic Cape Town CBD. Her voice is as coarse as the petals of a King Protea, warm and weathered from a great love of talking to people. It’s the kind of voice that I love listening to. Her laugh is as rough and as rich as the sound of a sieve shaking away dust and earth to reveal a precious stone.

Alison’s favourite flower is also a lily - Arum Lilies. Despite what Leslie Woodriff thought about lilies in the 1970s, the more modest beauty of the Arum Lily is something that has been greatly admired all throughout history. There is a story in Greek mythology that tells of how Hera, Queen of the gods and protector of women during childbirth and marriage, spilled some of her breast milk after nursing baby Hercules and how that milk spilled into the sky and became the Milky Way, while the drops that landed on Earth bloomed into Arum Lilies. There is a purity and holiness to these flowers and perhaps an air of that god-given energy of protection and nurturing. There is certainly that within Allison and I can see it whenever she gets up from our conversation to tend to the steady stream of customers looking to purchase a bundle of something beautiful, assembling the bouquets with care and grace. When she returns, she is much more softly spoken than her sister but just as delightful to talk to. Her laugh is like the clinking of two glasses – a modest celebration. Laughing with them feels like a party. We laugh when Karen tells me that Allison is lying about the Arum Lilies and that she actually prefers the “dry and dead stuff” that they use when making floral arrangements for film shoots. “It’s nature,” Alison tells me in defence of both Arum Lillies and the dry florals. “It’s all so natural and so beautiful.”

The two sisters balance each other perfectly and I can see how they’ve been able to work together so well and for so many years. I can picture them as young children when they tell me about how, at the age of 8 and 9 years old, they would board a train after school on Friday afternoons, arriving at the market to help their grandmother sell flowers well into the early hours of Saturday and Sunday mornings.

"We basically just helped our grandmother selling the flowers," one sister recalls warmly. "She was in front by the flowers and I was on the pavement. My job was to catch the customers from the cars.”

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Their grandmother sourced flowers from local farms, and the children worked tirelessly through the night, driven by youthful energy and the lure of a modest reward – R4 for the entire weekend's work. The money, however, came with responsibilities. One weekend, it was handed over to their mother. The next, it was used to buy their own necessities.

But it wasn't all hard labour. The market was, as one sister describes it, "really the best times ever." Parliament Street, then still an open road at the bottom of the market, buzzed with life well past midnight. Customers from as far as Malmesbury would make the long journey into town on Saturday nights, arriving around midnight to buy flowers for graves — a ritual that was as much a social outing as it was an errand.

"From 12 o'clock, they had the cruise to town," she recalls with a smile. "It was the outing to town. And they would come buy their flowers for the graves.”The Golden Acre shopping center nearby housed a theater, and when the late-night movies let out, the sisters knew exactly what to do. "We put the carnation flowers in front of Golden Acre. It will sell out — one rand a bunch. When those movies came out, everybody buys flowers.”

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The roots of this story stretch back even further than childhood memories. The sisters are proud to call themselves part of the fourth generation of flower sellers connected to Adderley Street, a lineage that traces its origins to around 1906, when women of colour began selling flowers on what was then a gravel road. According to oral history passed down through the family, a man named Thomas Lightfoot — reportedly an archbishop — looked after the flower sellers of the era and eventually entrusted the market space to them. "From the start, the ladies started in 1906 on Adderley Street," one sister explains. "That was the whole point — Adderley Street flower sellers."

Their grandmother held eight stands at the market, a testament to her prominence in the community. When she passed away 37 years ago, those stands were claimed by her children, leaving the sisters without an immediate foothold. It was another elderly flower seller — recognising their passion and skill — who eventually offered them a stand of their own.

"Otherwise, you can't get in," one sister explains. "All the stands are passed down through generations." It is a system built on trust, legacy, and love for the trade — one that cannot be replicated by outsiders who simply wish to sell flowers.

By the age of 21, both sisters had established their own flower business, driven not by formal training but by something far more powerful: natural talent, generational knowledge, and an unshakeable work ethic. "We never went to school to learn how to make a bunch," one sister laughs. "But we still got the eye. Natural talent. Our bloodline is in the flowers."

Yet for all its beauty and history, the Adderley Street flower market faces an uncertain future — one shaped by government regulation, urban redevelopment, and economic pressures that threaten the very existence of this living heritage.

The permit controversy is at the forefront of the sisters' concerns. For the first time in the market's long history, sellers are being asked to obtain permits to continue operating — a requirement they find deeply unjust.

"We never had permits," one sister says with barely concealed frustration. "We are the face of Cape Town. Why must we pay for permits and renew them every time? They must look after us. We are entertaining the tourists. If there's no flower sellers, where are they going to showcase it?"

Beyond the permits, a proposed urban upgrade threatens to fundamentally alter the character of the market. Developers, who are already transforming the surrounding area — converting a bank into a hotel with 300 apartments and upgrading Cape Lane — want to relocate the flower sellers into a structured indoor space, away from the open street.

"They want us to be in a down lane, in little boxes," one sister says, her voice heavy with concern. "That is taking away what the ladies in the 1900s started — selling flowers on Adderley Street."

The economic landscape has also shifted dramatically. Where once the flower market enjoyed a monopoly — since there were no shops selling flowers — today competitors like major supermarket chains offer ready-made bouquets at the click of a button. More pressing, however, is the issue of farmers selling directly to the public at prices only marginally higher than what they charge the market sellers.

"They sell a bunch to us for 20 rand," one sister explains, "and then sell it to customers directly for 25 rand. So coming — they're adding their own markups. Where must we buy it for 20 and still make something of it?"

The sisters attribute the sharp rise in flower prices to the COVID-19 pandemic, during which farmers suffered significant losses and subsequently raised prices to recover. Global instability and fuel costs have only compounded the problem. "I didn't know flowers were going to become so expensive in such a short time," one sister muses. "Everything just went crazy.”

The sisters are not taking these challenges lying down. With the help of a cousin working in the heritage field, papers have been submitted to have the Adderley Street flower market officially declared a heritage site — a process that could be finalised by December of this year, potentially making the recognition official by 2027. "The market is almost 160 years old," one sister notes. "We, the people here, are the people that kept it alive — and the people before us, their family members, kept it alive all those years."

However, even heritage status comes with limitations. While the ground itself may be protected, the sellers as individuals remain vulnerable. City authorities could theoretically still require permits of individual vendors, regardless of heritage protections. "If I act in a way they don't like, the City can come and say I'm not in union with the permit — because they want Tom and Dick to come in," one sister explains candidly. "So we are not really protected."

Meanwhile, a fundraising initiative is underway, organised by a local university, to support the flower sellers directly. A group of around 15 people is expected to visit the market on a coming Saturday to hear first-hand accounts of the sellers' history and challenges, before proceeding to nearby Bree Street. Bunches of flowers will be sold as part of the fundraising effort. The sisters' most pressing practical need? A permanent shade structure over the market's rotation of stalls. Currently, sellers must bring their own canopies, which are frequently damaged by wind and storms. A single permanent structure costs approximately R55,000, and the market would need six to provide adequate coverage — a total investment that, the sisters argue, the City of Cape Town should fund, but consistently declines to do citing budget constraints.

Basic infrastructure also remains a persistent problem. The market's single water tap is frequently vandalised by vagrants who remove it, leaving sellers without access to water.

"We used to buy taps and fix them ourselves," one sister sighs. "But we're tired of doing that. So we just leave it." As the interview draws to a close, what becomes unmistakably clear is that the Adderley Street flower market is about far more than commerce. It is a living museum, a community gathering point, a tourist landmark, and a testament to the tenacity of women who refused to let adversity, apartheid, poverty, or progress silence their calling."We grew up here," one sister says simply. "This is our livelihood. This is what we wanted to do."

They carry with them the lessons of a grandmother who paid them four rand for a full weekend's work, who taught them how to pack a bunch, and who fed one child chicken while giving the other a pie — a detail that, even now, draws a burst of indignant laughter from the sister who received the lesser meal.

They carry the history of 1906, of gravel streets, of women who dared to build a business with nothing but their hands and their knowledge of the land's flowers. And they carry the hope that one day, they too will pass this legacy on to someone who understands that selling flowers on Adderley Street is not just a job. It is a birthright. "So one day, we would also want to give it to somebody that wants to continue the legacy," one sister says, gazing out at the vibrant rows of blooms surrounding her. "The legacy of the women who started this business."

Cape Town, it would seem, owes them at least that much.