5 days in Adelaide, Australia- 5/17- 5/21/2024

Day 5-Adelaide BotanicGarden-5/21/2024

Today is our last day in Adelaide and our first stop is the Botanical garden.

The Adelaide Botanic garden occupies about 126 acres on the north-east corner of Adelaide’s city center (between North Terrace and Botanic Park). The current site was selected in 1854 and the garden opened to the public on 4 October 1857. Its first superintendent was George William Francis appointed in 1855, aimed to model the garden broadly on places like Royal Botanic Gardens, and to include both exotic plants and native Australian species. Directors over time introduced significant features: for example, the iconic Palm House was constructed in 1877 (imported from Germany) and is one of the few of its kind remaining. More recently, the garden has embraced sustainability: for example a wetlands system (First Creek Wetlands) was opened in 2013 for storm water capture and plant display.

We are heading to Adelaide Botanic garden by passing through the Botanic Park.

We are now walking on Plane Tree Drive, one of the oldest and most loved parts of the Botanic Gardens precinct.  The London plane trees that lined the road were planted in the late 19th century, chosen for their elegant form and resilience to Adelaide’s dry climate.

Map of the Adelaide Botanic Garden. It is huge!

A giant Plane tree and in the fall, their broad leaves turn brilliant shades of gold, amber, and bronze, creating a beautiful canopy. This giant plane tree is likely one of the heritage London plane trees that have stood there for over a century. These trees are known for their vast, spreading canopies, their branches reach so wide that they create a perfect natural dome.

On the ground, a circular ring of fallen leaves beneath was formed because the canopy’s shape funnels the leaves down almost directly below, creating a golden carpet.

The Ginkgo biloba, often called the “maidenhair tree,” is an ancient species, a living fossil that’s existed for more than 200 million years. Its distinctive fan-shaped leaves turn a pure, luminous golden yellow each fall. Even on overcast days, the color seems to glow softly against the sky, making it one of the most photographed trees in the garden.

In East Asian cultures, the ginkgo is a symbol of resilience and longevity, as it can live for over a thousand years and even survived near the epicenter of Hiroshima. Seeing one in full autumn color feels like standing before something timeless, a living link between the ancient and the present. 

Walkway lined with Moreton Bay figs (Ficus macrophylla) are truly magnificent, native to eastern Australia and known for their enormous buttress roots that spread wide across the ground like sculpted waves. On a cloudy day, the Moreton Bay fig walkway feels especially serene, the light turns soft and silvery, and the deep greens of the fig leaves look richer and more velvety. The air under the canopy feels still, almost hushed, as if the trees are sheltering people from the world outside.

Moreton Bay figs are known for their immense size, growing up to early 200 feet tall in their native environment. However, what you are likely admiring most are their massive buttress roots. These enormous, snake-like structures spread out from the base of the trunk, providing stabilization and giving the trees a majestic, almost ancient look. They were planted along this avenue starting in 1866, meaning the trees you are currently walking past are well over 150 years old.

Like many figs, the Moreton Bay fig is often a "strangler fig." This means that in the rainforest, the seed is often dropped by a bird high in the canopy of a host tree. The seedling starts life as an epiphyte, sending down aerial roots that eventually reach the ground. These roots then thicken and fuse, eventually surrounding and strangling the host tree, allowing the fig to become a massive, freestanding tree on its own. While the trees in the avenue were likely planted directly in the ground, this characteristic explains their incredible root systems.

We are now walking toward the Amazon Water lily Pavilion.  The pavilion was built in 2007 to replace the Amazon Water lily's original purpose-built residence, the Victoria House. The design of the energy-efficient glasshouse was inspired by the lily's giant leaves, and the original pond from the Victoria House remains as the centerpiece of the new pavilion.

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Entering the Pavilion

The Amazon Water lily Pavilion is a glass palace, and the pond inside the pavilion is home to the magnificent Amazon Water lily (Victoria amazonica), a truly astonishing plant that has captured the imagination of botanists and designers for centuries.

The most striking feature is, without a doubt, its enormous leaves, which look like gigantic, floating serving trays.

In the wild, these circular pads can reach up to over 8 feet in diameter! If you look closely at the new growth or through the water, you'll notice the underside of the leaves is covered in sharp, protective spines, a defense against plant-eating animals in its native Amazonian habitat.

We were told that we were lucky to catch a glimpse of its extraordinary flowers. They have a fascinating, short-lived cycle: First Night (White): When they first bloom, the flower is a pristine white and gives off a sweet, pineapple-like scent to attract its specific pollinating insect, the scarab beetle. Overnight Transformation (Pink): The flower closes around the trapped beetles overnight, heats up, and undergoes a chemical change, transforming its color to a deep rosy pink. Second Night (Pink and Release): The pink flower opens and releases the beetles, which are now dusted with pollen and go off to seek a new, white flower, ensuring cross-pollination. The flower then sinks back into the water, its job complete. The entire magnificent show only lasts about 48 hours.

The warm, hot and humid atmosphere inside the glass pavilion is carefully maintained to mimic the conditions of the South American Amazon backwaters, providing the perfect home for this botanical jewel.

Beautiful path inside the garden.

We are now on Connifer Lawn and the Torch Lily are bright red at the top and bright yellow at the bottom.  The Torch Lily is a tall, dense, upright spike of tubular flowers that truly resembles a glowing torch or a poker pulled straight from a fire. The entire stalk can reach an impressive height of 3 to 5 feet.

The Red flowers at the top of the spike are the newest buds or freshest blooms. As the individual tubular flowers (florets) age and open, their pigment changes, causing the lower flowers to transition from red/orange to a brilliant Yellow at the bottom of the spike. This continuous change creates that striking, two-toned, ombre effect.

The Dragon Tree is one of the most uniquely shaped and fascinating trees you'll find in any botanic garden. When they are young, they look like a single, stout trunk with a huge rosette of leaves at the top. However, after they flower (which can take 10 to 15 years!), the trunk stops vertical growth and begins to branch, creating that iconic, broad, umbrella-like or mushroom-shaped canopy. Each subsequent flowering causes another split, giving the tree its ancient, multi-crowned silhouette.

Dragon Trees are famous for their incredibly slow growth, taking about 10 years to reach just a couple of meters in height. But this slow pace translates to incredible longevity; some specimens in their native Canary Islands are thought to be hundreds, if not over a thousand, years old. They are native to the Canary Islands, Madeira, and parts of Morocco, areas known for their dry, subtropical climate, which is why they are well-suited to the Adelaide environment.

 We are now approaching the iconic Main Lake (sometimes called the Central Lake) of the Adelaide Botanic Garden. This area is designed to transition beautifully from structured gardens into a more naturalistic landscape.

While the Adelaide Botanic Garden beautifully showcases Australian flora, its reputation is equally built on its spectacular collection of exotic trees from around the globe. This reflects the garden's original 19th-century mandate to introduce and trial useful and beautiful plants from all corners of the British Empire and beyond.

This banana plant have a distinctive red or burgundy center line (midrib), is an Ornamental Banana, and not one of the typical edible varieties. It is grown purely for its spectacular foliage and architectural presence, not for fruit, as its small fruits are dry, hard, and inedible. The striking red center line (midrib) on the leaves is its most defining characteristic.

We are now heading to the International Rose Garden

The International Rose Garden in the Adelaide Botanic Garden was first established in the 1990s as a collaboration between the Botanic Gardens and the National Rose Society of South Australia, designed to showcase roses from around the world.

The garden is home to an enormous collection of roses, featuring over 2,700 bushes and more than 350 different rose cultivars. This massive display ensures that there is always something beautiful in bloom from spring through to autumn (October to April).

The roses are laid out in a beautiful, formal structure that contrasts nicely with the adjacent Bicentennial Conservatory. As people wander, they will pass through different spaces, including a sunken garden and circular gardens, often separated by elegant pergolas and tunnels of climbing roses that people can walk right beneath.

Even on a cloudy day, the colors stand out, deep crimsons, soft pinks, apricots, and creamy whites glowing against the grey light.

Some plaques mention award-winning roses bred in Australia and overseas, many tested here because of Adelaide’s ideal Mediterranean climate for rose cultivation.

The metal arches (often forming a tunnel-like pergola) are designed to serve two main purposes. First, they provide the necessary support structure for the climbing and rambling rose varieties. Second, they create a beautiful, shaded walkway or arbor, inviting you to immerse yourself in the fragrance and color of the blooms overhead.

The roses covering these arches are specifically Climbing Roses or Rambling Roses. Unlike bush roses, these types produce long, flexible canes that are carefully trained and tied to the structure by the garden staff.

Even though May is late autumn in Adelaide, the International Rose Garden often still has many blooms because of the city’s mild Mediterranean climate. The roses here usually have a strong autumn flush,  a second burst of color that can last well into May before the winter pruning begins.

It’s a quiet, in-between moment, the garden winding down for winter but still full of life. The lingering roses make it feel like spring’s echo in the middle of autumn.

The Queen Adelaide Statue, which fittingly resides here in the beautiful International Rose Garden. The City of Adelaide, South Australia's capital, is named after Queen Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. She was the Queen Consort to King William IV of the United Kingdom, who reigned from 1830 to 1837. In 1836, the colony of South Australia was established during King William IV's reign, and the new capital city was named in honor of his much-loved wife, Queen Adelaide, at the King's request. Queen Adelaide was known during her life for her piety, modesty, and commitment to charity and civic work. She was highly respected by the British people. The statue was a community-driven project to not only memorialize the woman after whom the city was named but also to contribute a piece of public art that recognizes the important, yet often overlooked, historical roles of women. It helps to keep her legacy alive and visible within the city she named.

This statue is relatively new to the Botanic Garden. It was unveiled on October 31, 2022, and is the work of South Australian sculptor Scott Eames. Its placement in the International Rose Garden is deliberate and perfect, as the Queen is often depicted holding the very flower that was named in her honor: the 'Queen Adelaide' rose (a Hybrid Tea variety)

Here is the rose named after Queen Adelaide.

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