Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria - Melbourne Gardens
Sweeping riverside gardens of lawns, lakes and winding paths in a picturesque design.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne opens in April 1873, when the director Ferdinand von Mueller named a new plant genus, Guilfoylia, after a young gardener named William Guilfoyle, only to lose his own job to that same man three months later. It follows the feud that followed, as Mueller accused his successor of scientific ignorance and questioned how he landed the post. Listen for how the two men's very different ideas about these gardens still shape the paths around you.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Rippon Lea Estate
Nineteenth-century mansion and gardens with a man-made lake, fernery and a pool built over the original ballroom.
Carlton Gardens
Formal Victorian-era gardens with tree-lined avenues and fountains, framing a grand nineteenth-century exhibition hall.
St Kilda Botanical Gardens
Sunken rose garden and historic parkland honoring a rosarian who gave every bloom away.
Alexandra Gardens
Riverside park of lawns and palms lined with historic timber rowing boathouses and a skate park.
Fitzroy Gardens
Historic gardens with a nineteenth-century cottage shipped brick by brick from Yorkshire and a fairy-carved tree stump.
Treasury Gardens
Historic nineteenth-century park with diagonal tree-lined paths and a bronze presidential memorial by a lake.