Australian Drylands

Step into a Garden for the future

As our climate warms, can Australian dryland plants help us thrive and survive?

Take the winding path through a shifting landscape of Australian dryland plants. Here you’ll discover an array of plants suited to Melbourne’s future climate. Our horticulturists have gathered seeds and species from hotter, drier parts of Australia, which have all adapted to harsh conditions.

Join us as we experiment with species new to Melbourne Gardens. Consider the changes you might make at home to create a more sustainable, climate-ready garden.

Connecting to Country

As you explore the Gardens you will see four colours and four words in Woi-wurrung language on the signs to reflect the Traditional Owners’ connection to Country and this particular place. The word galk-biik refers to woodland in Woi-wurrung and the signs in this area have teal highlights.

Wild-sourced plants

Australia’s rare and threatened species are emphasised in this new garden. Through ex-situ conservation and engagement with other botanic gardens, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne is trialling a range of new wild-sourced plants for climate readiness and a range of landscape outcomes.

Collecting trips were undertaken by Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria’s Science and Horticulture to areas of NSW, Queensland, Western Australia and northern Victoria. Many of these plants have never been grown here at the Gardens before.

Top tips for home gardeners from the Australian Drylands team

Although many plants in this Collection are new to horticulture and not yet available commercially, there are plenty of options readily available for you to try in your own garden.

The team who curate and care for the plants in the Austrlian Drylands have carefully prepared a list of their top Australian plant recommendations for home gardeners wanting to adapt their own gardens for climate readiness.

Download the list along with the climate-responsive plants checklist and be part of gardening for a climate-resilient future.

Download the plant checklist

Choosing climate ready plants with the Climate Asssessment Tool

The Climate Change Alliance of Botanic Gardens developed the Climate Assessment Tool. It provides guidance for horticulturists on plant species suitable for their location's predicted climate scenarios. You can use this tool, too when selecting plants for your own garden. All you need to know is your location (latitude and longitude) and the scientific name of the species you are considering.

Use the Climate Assessment Tool

Seeds of Hope

Poetic in nature, thought-provoking in tone and sculptural in form, each of the ‘Seeds of Hope’ is a work of art. These four sentinels emerge from the Australian Drylands landscape and feature poetry by Wiradjeri poet, writer and academic, Dr Jeanine Leane.

Jeanine Leane's poetry, short stories, critique, and essays have been published in Hecate: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Women’s Liberation Australian Poetry Journal, Antipodes, Overland and the Sydney Review of Books. She has published widely in the area of Aboriginal literature, writing otherness, literary critique and creative non-fiction. Jeanine taught Creative Writing and Aboriginal Literature at the University of Melbourne.

Jeanine's work has featured in several projects at Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, most recently in a series of light installations at Lightscape in 2024

Designing the Australian Drylands

"The Garden is designed to feel like a walk in the bush, with its central pathway weaving through the garden bed. Along the way, the path opens out into two themed landscape nodes that allow visitors to explore the ideas of landscape succession and plant adaptation."

Andrew Laidlaw
Landscape Architect, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria

The Climate Change Alliance of Botanic Gardens

"Climate change is happening now. As a consequence, the issues our world faces are unprecedented and borderless. The world's botanic gardens are custodians of critically needed scientific and horticultural knowledge, and their landscapes a source of inspiration, learning and a place for positive social change."

This declaration was made in 2018 at the inaugural botanic gardens Climate Change Summit at Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. At this summit, representatives from 13 international botanic gardens and botanic organisations agreed to form the Climate Change Alliance of Botanic Gardens. As of 2024, over 400 botanic gardens and likeminded institutions from across the world have joined the Alliance, addressing climate change to protect plants, people and the planet.

Learn more

Your support helps the Gardens flourish

The Australian Drylands has been made possible through the generous support of a number of private donors.

If you would like to support projects like this, click below:

Donate here

What is Landscape Succession?

Learn how we're future-proofing Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne in our Landscape Succession Strategy:

Young Botanists

Un-be-leaf-able! How do Australian Drylands plants survive hot and dry conditions? One of their secrets is in their leaves!

Find the etchings in the bluestone pavers to discover these leaves' special powers:

1. Broad leaves

2. Hard leaves

3. Fleshy leaves

4. Needle-like leaves

View Australian Drylands on map

How's it growing?

Where there's smoke ...

"Fifty of the 340 seed species sourced for the Australian Drylands required smoke pre-treatment to germinate. Karrikin 1 is a type of molecule found in smoke from burnt plant material. It helps stimulate seed germination, especially in plants from fire-prone areas, by mimicking the chemical signals of fire, breaking seed dormancy and promoting growth. Previous attempts using products such as liquid smoke gave undesirable results, so I designed and built a 'seed smoker' from a 44-gallon drum.

Seeds were sown into punnets and placed in the smoker. This produced excellent results and the smoker now serves as a permanent piece of equipment in the Nursery."

— Nicoletta Centofanti, Horticulturist (Nursery), Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne

Ancient adapters

This is a Burrawang (Lepidozamia peroffskyana), a slow-growing species of cycad. Highly resilient having survived since the Prehistoric era, this species is under increased threat due to human-related activity. Chosen for the Australian Drylands in part for their excellent ability to adapt to dry periods, this specimen is one of several mature cycads relocated from elsewhere in Melbourne Gardens.

The cycads were carefully transported using a giant tree spade and crane. The Gardens team experimented with cutting the leaves back halfway on two of the specimens, so that some photosynthetic material remained, while completely removing the leaves on the other two to compare their recovery. While they may look lifeless at the moment, the team are confident these plants will make a full recovery over time.

Seed-catching for conservation

Craspedia canens—a perennial herb commonly known as Grey Billy Buttons—are critically endangered in the wild and can only be found in small patches of grassland between Cranbourne and Traralgon in Victoria.In the Australian Drylands, we're bagging these jewel-like, bright-yellow spherical flower heads to capture their precious seeds, which would normally be dispersed by wind.

We'll use the seed to continue our research into how best to grow and protect this species from extinction.