Australian Garden

The Australian Garden is beautiful with huge gum trees and a wide open area – a fantastic place for a family picnic! There are statues of Australian animals hidden within the garden. See if you can spot them! Within the Australian garden there are eucalyptus trees commonly known as gum trees. There are more than 700 species of gum trees in existence, only 15 of these species are found outside of Australia and nine of those aren’t found in Australia at all. Most species are native to Australia along with the koala who feeds off these magnificent trees.

The native frangipani is a rainforest tree that is native to Queensland and New South Wales in Australia and New Guinea. The tree is not closely related to the frangipani despite its common name. The native frangipani has a narrow upright form and produces clusters of fragrant flowers in spring – about 5 cm in diameter. They are cream in colour and age to a yellow; flowers are followed by long pear shaped seeds. The flowers attract bees, honey-eating birds and butterflies. The native frangipani has dark green glossy leaves which are 10 cm long and 4 cm wide.

The Brown Pine – Podocarpus elatus is endemic to the east coast of Australia. The tree is a medium-large evergreen tree. The leaves are 5-15cm long and 6-18mm wide. The brown pines seed cones are dark-purple, berry-like, with a fleshy base 2-2.5cm in diameter; the seed cones bear a single oval seed 1cm in diameter. The fleshy part of the seed cone is edible, and the timber is used for furniture, joinery, boat planking and lining.

The Huon Pine is a slow growing tree native to the southwest of Tasmania, Australia. The tree is straight trunked with spirally arranged, scale-like leaves. The leaves are 1-3mm long. The huon pine bears male and female cones on separate plants. The wood is highly prized for the golden yellow colour, fine grain and natural oils but due to slow growth and heavy logging the huon pine is now protected.

The Macadamia is a genus of nine species, seven of these being native to Australia. They are an evergreen with lance shaped leaves 6-30cm long and 2-13cm wide. The flowers grow on their own long slender stalk (5-30cm), and are 15-20mm long. They are white to pink or purple in colour. The Macadamia produces macadamia nuts which mature in a woody globe shaped shell.

The Heath-leaved Banksia is a woody shrub native to Australia. The dark green, crowded leaves are small and narrow 9-20mm long and 1mm wide. New growth appears in summer and is lime green in colour. The shrub flowers in autumn/winter, the flower spikes are 7-22cm long and 5cm wide, and have a long wiry style. The spikes are red or gold in overall colour with styles of golden, orange, orange-red or burgundy. Old flower spikes fade to brown to grey with age.

The Blackbean is an evergreen native to the east coast of Australia. The leaves are 15cm long and 6-7 meters wide. The flowers are red and yellow, 3-4cm long and produced on a stem, each flower having an individual stalk. The fruit is a cylindrical pod 12-20cm long and 4-6cm in diameter. The inside is split into 3-5 cells by a spongy substance which contains a large chestnut-like seed. The seeds are poisonous but are edible when carefully prepared by pounding into flour, leaching in water, and roasting.