Botanic gardens are off to Chelsea

THE Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne has the prestigious honour of being part of this year’s Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show.
There they will showcase the ‘Australian Garden’ project.
One of only six large displays at the show, the garden depicts the arid outback of Australia.
It celebrates the wonderful array of colours, shapes, scents and foliage of Australia’s remarkable plant life.
Characterised by the absence of water, it creates an imaginary journey to the wetter, urban east coast by gradually increasing the presence of water.
Curator of Horticulture at RBG Cranbourne, Warren Worboys never imagined he would one day be part of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
Mr Worboys travelled to London with Chris Russell and Clare Hart on 10 May to start preparations for the show, held from 24 – 28 May.
They will take over 3085 shrubs and trees that have been hand-selected for the project, some species that the Chelsea Flower Show has never seen before. The plants will be grown by expert Chelsea horticulturists especially for the garden.
A box of rare and threatened seed has also been shipped from RBG Melbourne to the UK, where the seeds will be grown for the garden.
These seeds were collected as part of the Victorian Conservation Seedbank, an international partnership with the Millennium Seed Bank Project, led by RBG Kew.