She has known this land for decades, watching Spier’s landscape regenerate – species by species, season by season – from the depleted monoculture soils left by intensive farming back to a farm alive with biodiversity. That intimacy with the place, and with the plants it sustains, shapes everything she brings to the Spier wellness offering.
Dr Caren has worked in herbal medicine for 37 years – growing, preparing, practicing and teaching – and has lived in the Cape Fynbos biome for most of her life. She has since childhood, learning to garden alongside her grandfather, and completed a four-year Diploma with the College of Phytotherapy in England – at the time, the only institution in the world offering formal training in the discipline. It is this depth of knowledge, rooted as much in lived experience as in formal study, that gives Spier’s spa its unusual authority.
She was closely involved in conceptualising the Cape Bath House experience, working alongside Mariota Enthoven and the spa’s director, Claudia van Wyk, during the period of development. Their guiding principle throughout was a farm-to-spa philosophy, with treatments, ingredients, and rituals connecting guests directly to nature. In practice, this means working with what the farm and its surrounding landscape actually provide.
The bathhouse ritual reflects Dr Caren’s philosophy in full. Guests begin with a full body exfoliation on a granite slab, followed by the bath itself – the water infused using muslin bags hand-filled with a blend Dr Caren formulated: organic rooibos, rose pelargonium, gotu cola, and cliffortia odorata. The blend is toning, rejuvenating and calming, and safe for use throughout pregnancy. The ritual incorporates steam, continues with exfoliation using fresh herbs crushed with salt, and concludes with a massage using a muscle recovery oil – a blend of peppermint, pelargonium, gotu cola, and rosemary in grapeseed oil – and a cup of Farm Tonic herbal tea.
Dr Caren also trained the spa’s therapists in a foot massage technique that incorporates reflexology-like methods, grounding each treatment from the outset.
Beyond the treatment rooms, Caren hosts fynbos tea tastings for guests – by advance booking. These are guided explorations of single-herb Cape teas, based on Fynbos herbs growing on Spier. They are as much about the ecology of the Cape as they are about taste and healing qualities. Guests can also book a personal phytotherapy consultation with her at her practice in the Spier Food Garden – another way to engage directly with her knowledge of medicinal plants and their uses.
The apothecary garden alongside the spa was planted on Caren’s advice. Plants were chosen for. It is a place to pause rather than harvest. The real work happens in her herb garden beside the Food Garden, where she grows and prepares the plants that go into treatments and tinctures. She has also taught Spier’s gardening teams to tend medicinal and culinary herbs, extending her knowledge quietly into the fabric of the farm.
The Cape Floral Kingdom has 69 percent endemism – most of its plant species exist nowhere else on earth. Urban expansion and monoculture continue to erode that. For Caren, working with these plants at Spier is an act of recognition – of living heritage worth protecting – as much as it is one of healing.
There are many ways to experience Caren’s work at Spier. Book a fynbos tea tasting or a personal consultation at the Food Garden. Visit the spa for the Cape Bathhouse Ritual or the Winter Ritual, both of which draw on her herbal blends and plant knowledge. Pick up one of her healing teas at Picknickery. Or stay longer and make it a full immersion – our Winter Wellness Retreat has been designed with exactly that in mind.
