Visit Melbourne's Hidden Gardens!

Melbourne is gearing up for the annual NGVWA Garden Day on 24 October 2024, one of the big events on the Spring Garden calendar.

Seven beautifully diverse private gardens will be open to the public, many for first time and designed by leading landscape designers including Andrew Laidlaw and Hendrik Van Leeuwen. Key highlights include a playful garden inspired by the Children’s Garden at the Royal Botanic Garden and ‘Invergowie’, one of Australia’s oldest gardens which has been given a restoration facelift to not only enhance historic features but to bring it into the 21st century.

One plant variety that looms large across many gardens, contemporary and period is the succulent in all its form. With their sculptural forms and vibrant colours, succulents appeal to many garden enthusiasts and artists alike – think Georgia O’Keefe’s cactus flowers and Sydney Nolan’s bold cactus depictions. These resilient plants thrive in challenging conditions with minimal water, making them perfect for sustainable gardening in Australia’s diverse climates.

With over 20,000 varieties worldwide, including hundreds of Australian natives, these varieties add both visual intrigue and practical benefits to garden designs of all kinds.

Here visionary landscape designer Andrew Laidlaw explains how he used succulents in the planting scheme for a beautiful period home:

“Succulents form a very important part of my plant palette. For example, Aloe plicatilis with its bold upright form is a contrast against softer forms like geraniums. I also use the very dramatic Aloe bainesii, which fills (a window vista). For accent, I like Agave geminia flora and Agave attenuate as well as large drifts of flowering plants including sedum autumn joy (another succulent) for its strong repeated forms.’

The garden of ‘Invergowrie’ although built in 1846 making it one of the Australia’s oldest, uses succulents to bring it into the 21^st century. Walking through the gates, there is a succulent lined driveway of Agave, Crassula, Cotyledon, Dracaena and Senecio which offsets ancient trees including six show stopping River Red Gums.

Additionally Diana Morgan author of ‘Succulents for the Mediterranean Climate Garden’ is thrilled many of the gardens in this year’s NGVWA Garden Day feature succulents in their planting schemes. Her only surprise is that it’s taken so long for these special plants to garner widespread interest. “They are very clever plants that have evolved to grow in low-water regions where other plants fail. To survive and retain water, they have altered their skins, leaves, roots and shapes. It is no accident that many succulents, large and small, are rosette in shape, which allows precious water to be channelled into their centres and down to the roots”.