The Ian Potter National Conservatory: a national showcase for tropical Australian native flora

Join Costa as he hosts our second Botanic Gardens Day 2023 webinar

Thursday 11 May at 7pm AEST

The Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra grows and conserves Australian native plants from ecosystems across Australia. The Gardens’ living collection is diverse with over 4300 species grown onsite.

The Ian Potter National Conservatory, opening late 2023, will display plants from Australia’s wet and dry tropics. It will showcase research on rare tropical plants from remote and often inaccessible parts of Australia, such as Kakadu and Christmas Island National Parks – many of which are rare in cultivation. It will be no ordinary conservatory. The Conservatory’s stunning design is the result of a national competition won by Sydney-based architects CHROFI with a vision of a ‘floating cube’.

Helen McHugh and Heather Sweet join us from the Australian National Botanic Gardens from two sides of the project. Helen, Manager of Visitor Experience, will give you a virtual tour of conservatory’s unique design, challenges of construction and how we are engaging visitors in our plant stories.

Heather, Nursery Horticulturist, will take you behind the scenes to our staff-only production greenhouses to explore the unique plants being grown for the conservatory. Heather will give you insights into the challenges, experimentation and creativity needed to get the best out of our tropical display plants.

To join the webinar, head to Costa’s Facebook or YouTube page at 7pm AEST on 11 May.

To watch the recorded webinar, click here.