Igniting interest in Central Australian plants | Boom and Bust in the Red Centre | Images - the Making of the Red Centre Garden | Background

Imagine yourself... wandering through the Red Centre

from its vast sand plains and dunes, rocky escarpments and breakaway country, to desert rivers and the gibber plains.

The Australian National Botanic Gardens is developing a new Red Centre Garden showcasing the iconic significance of the continent's red centre as the physical and spiritual heart of Australia, right here in the nation's garden within the nation's capital. The Garden is set to open as part of the 2013 Canberra 100 – Celebrating the Centenary festivities.

Concept sketch of the Red Centre Garden

Igniting interest in central Australian plants

The vision behind the Red Centre Garden is to inspire visitors' appreciation for Australia’s unique desert plants and landscapes. Visitors will experience a selection of plants from Central Australia’s iconic and dominant plant communities, including the mulga country, the majestic desert oaks, ghost gum woodlands, spinifex grasslands and saltbush scrub. The garden will inspire a ‘sense of place’ connecting people to some of the iconic plants and landscapes of central Australia and give a memorable and educational experience.

The story themes will integrate elements of the ephemeral nature of this country, the indigenous connection to country and prominent plant species and plant communities.

The design will be visually stunning - simple yet dramatic - combining elements of the natural beauty of the red centre landscapes with aspects of contemporary landscape design.

Boom and Bust in the Red Centre – survive or perish

The central concept of Boom and Bust ecology in the Red Centre will invite people to take a closer look at how plants, animals and people have survived and adapted to the desert’s extreme variability in rainfall.  

All the elements in the garden will be invested with meaning, so that visitors become immersed in an interpretive space. Patterned and timed plantings replicating boom and bust cycles, interpretive signs, sculptures and decorative elements will all be used to show, explain and celebrate the details of desert life.

The garden will feature and interpret plants that have developed specific adaptations to desert extremes.

Visitors will also get a glimpse of some desert animals, their relationships with desert plants, and their adaptations to dry climates.  

A section devoted to useful plants will highlight aboriginal Australians’ history and wealth of knowledge of use of plants for food, tools and medicine.

A children’s trail of desert discovery will spark curiosity as children track animals throughout the garden and learn along the way. Tracks, burrows, hollows and nests will intrigue young visitors to find the animals that made them.

Scientific research relating to central Australian plants and environment will be explained where possible.

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The Making of the Red Centre Garden

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Background - The Journey to the Red Centre

In 2004, the Gardens opened a new state-of-the-art plant production nursery in a new location at the top of the Gardens, making the original nursery site at the centre of the Gardens available for a new display.  

In 2010, the Gardens’ executive developed the concept of an arid garden display. An arid garden showed potential to use iconic Australian arid landscape elements to demonstrate a spectacular contrast with other plant communities within the Gardens.

That same year, the Director of National Parks approved the arid garden concept, highlighting its linkages with Uluru and the natural significance of the arid red centre as one of Australia’s National Landscapes. The arid garden concept became officially known as the Red Centre Garden.

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