If you mimic its habitat, and provide a hot, dry, sunny, well-drained spot for it, Heterolepis aliena will thrive almost anywhere. In well-watered gardens with heavy soils it does not do so well. It is not that it does not need water or that it can be treated like a succulent that stores water, it must receive some water,but that water must not stand for long but should drain away relatively fast. It is well-suited to sunny fynbos gardens, waterwise gardens and succulent gardens, and sunny rockeries, slopes, banks, terraces and retaining walls.

Use a slightly acid, well-drained soil and don't over-water or make sure that any excess water drains away freely. Feed and mulch with compost, and although it does no tneed much more, you can supplement this with a balanced organic fertilizer. The compost mulch should be added to the bed in autumn,and again in spring.

Propagate from seed sown in late summer-autumn (February/March-May)and from heel cuttings taken in autumn or spring. Cuttings shouldbe rooted under mist with bottom heat, or harder growth can be rooted in a cold frame.