Melbourne Botanic Garden

Habitat, nursery/collection and show tours.
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MikeT
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Melbourne Botanic Garden

Post by MikeT »

Some pics coming up of the Melbourne Botanic Garden last October. There are a few shots of the main garden, but the emphasis (strangely enough) is on the succulents there.

Just inside the entrance is this Brachychiton rupestris, the Queensland Bottle Tree. Attila Kapitany, in Australian Succulent Plants, says that it's endemic to Queensland, but it seems to grow happily enough well south of its natural range; I saw several in New South Wales and Victoria.
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A little further in, and a patch of Agave attenuata. This was a commonly seen species in Australian gardens
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Another Agave patch, this time A. geminiflora with many flower spikes.
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Succulents used for colourful ground cover
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and Aeoniums in plenty
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Last edited by MikeT on Tue Feb 03, 2015 8:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Mike T

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Re: Melbourne Botanic Garden

Post by MikeT »

Lots of non-succulents to see. Clivia miniata is a pot plant on my windowsill at home, but a common garden plant in Melbourne. Used here as extensive ground cover. Mainly the orange flowered form,
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but other colours are also available.
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Orchids planted out
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and arums, I rather like the foliage on this one
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. Plenty of Bromeliads. Very clean water in this urn.
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Re: Melbourne Botanic Garden

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colourful foliage on some of the bromeliads
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as well as colourful flower spikes
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Some sort of cycad (sorry, no ID)
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and a Peperomia (again, no ID)
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Then another succulent bed. I suspect even Colin may struggle to put names to all the unnamed Aloes in the garden. Pretty flowers, whatever it is.
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Last edited by MikeT on Wed Jan 07, 2015 5:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Melbourne Botanic Garden

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More succulents for colourful ground cover, Aeoniums and Kalanchoe pumila. For me, the latter is a hanging basket plant, but I don't have it in quite the same quantity as the the gardens here.
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. More Aeoniums
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and I think this is a Yucca. Rather nice colour to the flower spike, whatever it is
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Re: Melbourne Botanic Garden

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Dudleyas as bedding, they seem to keep the farina despite getting any rain that comes along
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Lots of epiphytic ferns in the Botanical Gardens, we were to see them later in vast quantities in Queensland.
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And some great buttress roots
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Not only xerophytes catered for
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Re: Melbourne Botanic Garden

Post by MikeT »

meanwhile, back at the succulents...ground cover from a Pachyphytum, filling in between Aloes and Aeoniums
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though some areas have gravel
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Guilfoyle's volcano is a mound with a water storage tank in the middle, in more recent times the 'cone' has been planted with succulents, with a path winding its way to the top. Some rather nice planting.
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This was labelled 'Kleinia stapeliiformis', which it clearly isn't; it's a plant which seemed to be widely used as ground cover, I'm fairly sure it's Senecio serpens
IMG_9034.JPG
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Re: Melbourne Botanic Garden

Post by MikeT »

some more views of the 'volcano'
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This is Agave franzesini 'Grey Ghost'. Afraid it would be a bit on the large size for my 6 x 8 GH, pity that.
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This is a more manageable size, labelled x Graptosedum 'Bert Swanwick'.
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This one was labelled Crassula atropurpurea v anomala. Enough to fill my GH a few times over, but looks as if it could be confined to a modest sized pot
IMG_9042.JPG
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Re: Melbourne Botanic Garden

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more of the volcano...
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Re: Melbourne Botanic Garden

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The scale of planting with these Echeverias was impressive.This was labelled Echeveria 'Baron Bold'
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Aloe flowers in various colours
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Re: Melbourne Botanic Garden

Post by MikeT »

A group of Agave multifilifera
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Moving away from the volcano now, this bed is close by
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I don't get Kalanchoe beharensis this big when I grow it
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A venerable Aloe plicatilis
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and more use of succulents for colourful ground cover
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More grey Agaves. I'd love to have the space to grow one of these
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Some sort of Puya? Flowers:
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and rosette:
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