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4 Feb 2019

Cassowaries in Sydney?

Our beautiful harbourside botanic garden receives over 5.48 million visitors annually and is one of the most visited botanic gardens in the world. The draw card for visitors? Our immaculate living collection featuring 27,799 plants and 3,378 trees from over 75 different countries, as well as the southern hemisphere’s largest indoor vertical green wall in The Calyx featuring over 18,000 plants!

The design, creativity and production of these horticultural marvels is due to Jimmy Turner, who joined our team in 2013 as the Director of Horticulture from the Dallas Arboretum in Texas.

Jimmy’s personality is as big as Texas and so is the wealth of horticultural knowledge he brought with him. The knowledge Jimmy has shared with our horticultural team has helped change the aesthetic of our garden landscape.

Did you see the monkeys?

The first topiary pop-ups were eight monkeys at the first display at The Calyx, Sweet Addiction: The Botanic Story of Chocolate.

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Jimmy doesn't monkey around when it comes to plant topiaries.

Remember the bees?

Then bees landed for the Pollination display at The Calyx but now that Plants with Bite has taken over, the bees buzzed off to the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan.
 

bbes, the calyx, jimmy turner, plant topiaries, sydney, garden
The Pollination display had plenty of topiary bees buzzing around.
 
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Jimmy is know for his bee-utiful topiary designs.  
 
mount annan, botanic garden, jimmy turner, plant bee
Visit the bees at the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan.

Get a selfie with our koala!

The koala has quickly become a must-see for visitors.

Introducing cassowaries!

And just this month our horticultural team have hidden two cassowary topiaries somewhere in the Garden for you to find. Hint: Where would you find them in the wild?

casowary, royal botanic garden, sydney, plant topiary
The cassowaries have landed.

Your mission!

Find them in the Garden and post or tweet your photo with #rbgsydney

Love cassowaries?

Want to learn more about why cassowaries are important to our ecosystem? Listen to our Branch Out podcast, No Plants, No Animals, which explores the connection between plant and animal survival with a trip to Taronga Zoo! Listen and subscribe here.

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