Save the Date for the BGANZ Open Day on Sunday 26th May 2024.
The Gardens will be abuzz with activities and various Guided Walks from 9.30 am till 3.30 pm.
Bookings essential for the Walks. Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to avoid disappointment ($5 each person, children free to pay on the day (cash only sorry)
Morning tea, plant stalls. Cards (12 for $20) and great books for sale. Cash sales only sorry.
Please note walks go for 1 hour each, so some walks overlap. Please take care when booking.
9.30 am Useful Plants with Andreas This 1 hour walk is designed to show visitors the local dry rainforest plants used by Aboriginal people for over 40,000 years, for medicine, tools, food and shelter. The walk begins in the Sensory Garden and continues into the Useful Plants Garden. Plants are labelled and signage also gives extra details about these wonderful native plants which you can grow in your home garden. It is a shady, unpaved walk, with one small incline.
10 am Rare and Threatened Plants 1 with Peter In the special Uncommon Plants section of the Gardens, Peter will show you the plants which are now very difficult to see in the wild. Learn about these unique and intriguing plants, why they are so threatened and what the Botanic Gardens is doing to preserve them.
10.30 am Hoop Pine Forest Walk with Marama. Cool and shady with the fresh scent of the Hoop Pines, this walk meanders up a medium incline on an unpaved path, through a 35-year-old plantation of Hoop Pines. The light filtering through the trees at any time of the day is entrancing. Learn more about their reproduction, unchanged since the time of the dinosaurs. Look out for the Sit and Ponder Place, the ferny glades where you can recharge your love of nature. At the top, enjoy the stone labyrinth, ring the bell and appreciate picturesque places to sit and relax.
11 am Rainforest Species Walk with Tim A short easy, unpaved stroll through cool rainforest planted about 15 years ago. This walk features rainforest species which were planted after an audit of the Wilson’s Park Reserve rainforest remnant not far from the Gardens. Butterfly plants are clearly marked, including the Richmond Birdwing Butterfly vine.
11.30 am Rare and Threatened Plants 2 with Peter In the special Uncommon Plants section of the Gardens, Peter will show you the plants which are now very difficult to see in the wild. Learn about these unique and intriguing plants, why they are so threatened and what the Botanic Gardens is doing to preserve them.
11.30 am Hoop Pine Forest Walk 2 with Trudi. Cool and shady with the fresh scent of the Hoop Pines, this walk meanders up a medium incline on an unpaved path, through a 35-year-old plantation of Hoop Pines. The light filtering through the trees at any time of the day is entrancing. Learn more about their reproduction, unchanged since the time of the dinosaurs. Look out for the Sit and Ponder Place, the ferny glades where you can recharge your love of nature. At the top, enjoy the stone labyrinth, ring the bell and appreciate picturesque places to sit and relax.
11.30 am Rainforest and Palm Gully with Phil Starrting with a wander through the Sensory Garden, Phil will show visitors the main rainforest rooms, which each features different species. At the most western end of the gardens in a natural small valley, a palm and fern gully has been established. Mostly paved, slight incline.
12pm Commercial uses of Rainforest Plants with Ken Featuring rainforest plants which have been cultivated for timber, nuts, food and tools from the Useful Plants Garden, Ken will lead you through three sections of the gardens. Unpaved mostly flat.
1pm Encounters 2020 Garden with Tracey This garden features plants which were collected by Banks and Solander in 1770. It includes a small amount of the 40,000 years of knowledge of rainforest plants given to us by the local Bundjalung elders. Have a try at identifying plants using a resource designed for schools (and adults).