Fitzroy Gardens

Some Melbournians claim that Melbourne is Australia’s “garden city.” A look around Fitzroy Gardens certainly helps their case. For 150 years, visitors have enjoyed this Victorian-inspired garden with its pathways engulfed by breathtaking elm trees (regarded as some of the best in Victoria!). Visitors and locals can also take in the Australian wildlife that make Fitzroy Gardens their home, such as rainbow-colored parrots, possums, grey-headed flying foxes, and more!

Fitzroy Gardens also holds social significance: it was established in the nineteenth century to provide a place of respite within the bustling city of Melbourne. Some say the garden’s establishment reflects 19th century beliefs about both moral and physical health benefits of a park within dirty and overcrowded cities. Those benefits are certainly still relevant, two centuries later.

There are numerous structures in the gardens, like the conservatory pictured here. The conservatory features incredible indoor floral displays, which are changed five times a year. Of Fitzroy Gardens’ two million visitors each year, do any of them check out all five yearly floral displays?!