TROPOSPHERE Gardens

04/06/2026

Dramatic cliffhanger palm Brahea dulcis, showing off in that low bright winter light. Thank you Mexico for the delicious eye candy! 🇲🇽

31/05/2026

Palms for another spectacular Guilfoyle garden, at Mawallok Estate near Beaufort. Compact, very architectural species that perform well in wind, baking summers and icy winters.
Pics 1 and 2: Trachycarpus wagnerianus, from Japan
Pic 3: Chamaerops humilis var argentea, from Morocco
Pic 4: Well that’s me, from Melbourne Pic 5: Mawallok view, from the terrace looking north to Mt Cole and the (other) Pyrenees. The original Guilfoyle garden included two or three Phoenix canariensis planted closer to the lake. Removed in the 1930s - what grand sentinels they would have been!
Thanks always @ bundogs and for helping me get more palms into this special landscape

28/05/2026

One of my garden favourites in flower, this very cute dwarf palm from the Atlantic coast of Brazil.
Butia catarinensis is a much smaller and more graceful relative of the common Jelly Palm (B odorata). Delicious fruit and the go-to ‘Jelly’ species for making icecream and sweets back home 🇧🇷

23/05/2026

Sabal minors’ time to shine at last, after decades obscured beneath the silver Brahea armata. The Brahea was poking the postman in the eye, so I did a big lift and revealed the understory. These Sabal are fully grown, at least 30 years old with deep subterranean trunks. They’ve been really good natured about their planting position in the dry garden, looking the part although they’d definitely prefer cool and boggy to hot and dry.

05/04/2026

Back to Warrnambool Botanic Gardens to check out the palm collection and give a guided presentation for the Friends and WCC horticultural staff. A fun day walking and talking in my favourite Guilfoyle garden, using palm specimens to illustrate the collection’s significance. So many rare palms from a vast geographic range, set out and thriving in their appropriate microclimates throughout the gardens. All that, but in Warrnambool! Such a privilege to have supplied and help develop the palm collection at WBG, thanks always for that opportunity. Just a little sample of the 100 different kinds of palms to be seen here…
1. Parajubaea group - extremely fast growing monumental palms from the Bolivian Andes. 2. Another baby mountain giant, La Rocha form Butia odorata from Uruguay. 3. From Central Australia, Livistona rigida ssp mariae growing well in a ‘hot spot’. 4. A colder climate palm from Kashmir, Phoenix loureiroi var humilis prefers shade in summer. 5. Phoenix sylvestris from central India loves the sun and a chance to show off on the palm lawn. 6. Jubaea chilensis. This one was planted before my time but it’s finally on the move, so I thought it deserved a guernsey too!

14/12/2025

Sometimes beautiful palms just hang out with me for a while, before I pass them on to clients. Appreciated these glorious Trachycarpus uhkrulensis - mountain palms on their way to a hillside north of Melbourne. Himalayan spunks that look super tropical, but are unbothered by subzero winter temps and intense sunlight. Last two pics show this palm planted at Warrnambool Botanic Gardens, then growing in habitat, Assam NE India.

30/11/2025

Joining the conga line of celebrators as the great Jane Edmanson retires from What a plant enabling, glorious woman. A Saint, in fact 😇🔴⚪️⚫️ I’m very lucky, Jane has visited my garden twice for the show - ‘The Palm Lady’ (2012) and ‘Fronds With Benefits’ (2025). You can check them out on and GA’s website https://www.abc.net.au/gardening

23/11/2025

Where would you go to see over a hundred different palm species, all thriving in the Victorian climate? Funnily enough, the answer is Warrnambool Botanic Gardens. I spent four years building this collection with former curator John Sheely, aka the legendary and here are (some of) the results. In March 2026, I’ll be returning to these gorgeous gardens to give a guided tour of the collection. Details soon.

16/11/2025

These wispy beauties are a favourite small palm in my garden. Also a perfect example of the way species in a genus look and grow differently, according to their natural habitat. Most Chamaedorea grow in deep shade, like the classic Parlour Palm, C elegans. That’s why they are up for houseplant duty. This umm…throuple are C glaucifolia. That blue-grey tint is sunscreen, a valuable adaptation for plants growing in the open, on the outer edges of the forest. gardens s

17/02/2025