A peek into Mandela’s memorial garden abloom

Mandela's final resting place ready

Don't expect the man who fought to end apartheid and then led South Africa as its first black president to spend eternity pushing up just daisies.

That's because he was buried in a garden carefully cultivated by landscape architect Greg Straw, who has filled it with plants native to Mvezo, the village on the Mbashe River in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, where Mandela was born.

The garden was designed as a perennial journey through the life of Madiba, the clan name for Mandela.

Straw, who gave CNN an exclusive peek at his work, said he tried to create a garden consistent with Mandela's values and to keep from attracting attention from the reporters who have been cruising the area: "Obviously we had to keep it as rustic as possible so that we didn't raise any eyebrows. We had to just do the basics, earthworks, no finishing."

On Sunday afternoon local time, Mandela was buried atop a hill in the garden overlooking the Qunu homestead, the ancestral village where he grew up and loved.

Finishing touches were being applied this week to the memorial, which was abloom with symbols of the life of the man who spent 27 years in prison for his anti-apartheid efforts, then became the nation's first black president.

"Everything that we did and designed in the garden always had another little meaning wherever we could find something," Straw said.

Those symbols include more than a few rocky patches.

And the paths meander, as did the life of the man who died December 5 at age 95. "Yes, and it meanders, and then, all of a sudden, when he got incarcerated and arrested, in the corner of the property, that's when it starts to turn."

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A peek into Mandela's memorial garden abloom