Walking through London’s Kew Gardens one winter day, botanist Prof Tim Entwisle was struck by the sight of a Persian iron tree. The tree was leafless but not lifeless. While others in the gardens were bare and raw branches, the vibrant red flowers of the iron wood stood out against the snow.
The image remained with Entwisle. This prompted him to plant a Persian iron wood (Parrotia persica) in his Melbourne home, where it thrives out of place in the heart of a neat garden.
“It’s an interesting and intriguing tree,” he says. “It doesn’t fit, but growing up reminds me of that time in Kew.”
As director and chief executive of Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Entwisle is surrounded by well-planned plantations, tree specimens and 170 years of development. Botanical gardens select their plants according to strict collection policies. Species can be chosen because of their place of origin, rarity, cultural or economic importance, or because they belong to a specific group. Each acquisition is backed by a documented reason.
Autumn color on the Persian iron tree by Tim Entwisle. Photography: Tim Entwisle
But home gardens are different. They are places of relaxation and self-care, a source of food and flowers, and a shield from the noise and chaos of the city. They range from courtyards and cottage gardens to lush courtyards barely restricted by shears.
So what do professional botanists do in their gardens?
In the far north of Queensland, Stuart Worboys climbs mountains to save rare plants. At these higher peaks, climate change brings species closer to the shore, so Worboys and his colleagues in the Australian tropical herbarium of Cairns collect seeds to grow in botanical gardens. Some are stored for the future, while others are planted in living collections.
Among the mountain species are the exquisite native rhododendrons (Rhododendron lochiae and R viriosum), which have been cultivated for many years. A more recent introduction to home gardens is Wilkie’s leather (Eucryphia wilkiei). Its natural habitat is wind-swept granite rocks on top of Queensland’s highest mountain, Chooreechillum / Mount Bartle Frere.
Stuart Worboys of James Cook University, Cairns, climbs mountains to save rare plants. Photography: Brian Cassey / The Guardian
“Eucryphia grows very well in gardens, but I can’t grow it in Cairns because it would melt,” Worboys says.
Instead, it grows more rugged species.
When he moved to a new house, his first change was to thin the clustered palm trees that occupied the front garden. He replaced them with a golden branch tree (Deplanchea tetraphylla), native to northeastern Queensland and New Guinea. When it blooms, the tree is filled with laurels and shrubs.
He also planted banksias, the red-flowered form of the broad-leaved paper bark (Melaleuca viridiflora) and Senna magnifolia, a dry-field tropical species that bears incandescent yellow flowers for nine months of the year. What connects these plants is their sculptural forms, “gloriously quarrelsome,” says Worboys, and their appeal to birds and insects.
In Sydney, Dr. Cathy Offord, the lead scientific researcher and manager of the Australian PlantBank at Mount Annan Australian Botanical Garden, also works with endangered species, including those collected by Worboys in the far north of Queensland. It is involved in the conservation of Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis) and macadamia (Macadamia tetraphylla), which is vulnerable to extinction in the wild.
In Offord Garden, “I like to mix it up,” he says.
Next to a dragon fruit (Selenicereus) stepping on a tibouchina (Tibouchina), there are orchids, succulents and a bonsai collection that includes a native rhododendron – “the species really lends itself to bonsai” – and a pi Wollemi.
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Vertical surfaces offer opportunities for high-altitude plantations. A hardwood fence, built to hide a shed, is covered in bromeliads.
“One of my secret passions,” he says. “Not everyone loves them, but I do.”
Dr. Dale Dixon also loves bromeliads. Since retiring as managing director at Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, he has had more time to devote to his collection of tillandsies, a group of bromeliads also known as air plants.
“Family and Productive Plants” in Tim Entwisle’s Backyard. Photography: Tim Entwisle
“They gave me my first tillandsia when I was 13 or 14,” he says. “It was Tillandsia usneoides, a Spanish moss, but at the time I didn’t know what it was. While studying botany at university, I started collecting them. “
Dixon has about 360 species. Follow a policy to ensure that your collection is developed in the right direction. Whenever possible, the plants should be accompanied by data on their place of origin and collector. Not all species have been described and given a scientific name, and provenance is of vital importance to this process.
Dixon’s garden is full of palm trees and cycads for a tropical feel, and she selects other plants for her flowers and shape “to add different texture”.
As a senior curator of the South Australian Botanical Gardens Nursery, Matt Coulter works with a wide variety of species. But he is especially interested in the titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum). When a titan arum blooms, it’s news. This rare species from the rainforests of Sumatra produces a three-meter flower spike wrapped in a dark purple neck. It also stinks of rotten meat to carry its pollinators: flies and carrion beetles.
Coulter has been working in the cultivation of titanium arum and related species for 14 years. Exchange information with other experts around the world.
An amaryllis butterfly (Hippeastrum papilio), an endangered species from Brazil with which Matt Coulter works. Photography: Matt Coulter
“I’m lucky to have all these interesting plants working,” he says.
But at home, Coulter’s passion is to grow fruits and vegetables. Its small garden is full of heritage crops and rare varieties. To maximize space, grow your fruit trees in the form of trellis, pruned and tied to frames.
“I love plants and I love cooking, and I can put those two things together at home. If I have free time, I’m in the garden. “