Having always driven past the Hunter Botanic Gardens at Raymond Terrace, always with the fleeting thought of ‘I must go there’… I finally did.
It holds many green wonders of forests and palms but I found the noise of the adjacent highway traffic too distracting to enjoy the bush.
I did marvel at the amazing sight of the purples and oranges and burgundies of the shedding bark of the Angophora costata trunks. This one was surrounded by the spent flower spears of Bottlebrush Grass plants, Xanthorrhoea macronema, as if on guard.
A friend had advised that the Cacti Garden was her favourite; ‘Oh, I don’t like cacti’, I’d said dismissively.
But the large Cacti Garden here was actually amazing! I was so ignorant of the diversity.
Look at these fat green roses, as cupped as any David Austin bloom…
These strange cannon balls were ribbed with prickles and sneakily expanding, yet some incongruously bore a soft yellow flower on top.
These helmeted and shielded warriors were ready for battle, on the alert and checking in all directions.
Yet this sort of vertical cacti looked gently harmless, furry towers, unlike their accompanying army of fierce little green friends.
And I found this the weirdest of all, a tall sculpture of beseeching groups of clasped hands.
I will never dismiss cacti again… and I am now unsure if they really are plants. Their world is weird indeed, but it is also wonderful.