Royal Botanic Garden Sydney

The Royal Botanic Garden is where Sydneysiders and visitors come to relax, be inspired and learn about plants and gardening. It's Sydney's favourite garden!

We encourage you to walk on the grass, touch the trees, smell the flowers and talk to the birds.

This oasis in the heart of the city is your opportunity to connect with the natural world and indulge your passion for plants.

FREE entry to Garden
The Garden has free entry.

Visitor Information
Open daily from 7am to sunset
September: Open between 7:00 AM - 6:00 PM
October: Open between 7:00 AM - 7:30 PM

Feature Gardens

From the provocative Rare and Threatened Plants Garden to the Indigenous Cadi jam Ora: First Encounters, our themed garden areas show the diverse beauty of nature.

Begonia Garden

These magnificent plants are grown worldwide in the tropics and subtropics for both flowers and foliage. Learn about their origins and about how to grow them. Sponsored by the Begonia Society of NSW.

Cadi Jam Ora: First Encounters and First Farm

Discover the Gardens rich Aboriginal heritage. Cadi Jam Ora: First Encounters is a garden display that tells the story of the Cadigal people, the traditional Aboriginal owners of the Sydney city area, and features plants that originally grew on the site of the Royal Botanic Garden. The First Farm display tells the story of the first farm establised by European settlers. Click here to see whats on the interpretive signs in the First Farm and Cadi Jam Ora displays.

Government House Grounds

The formal grounds of garden displays, manicured lawns and larger scale shrub plantings complement the heritage context of Government House. Open 10 am to 4 pm every day except Good Friday and Christmas Day, and for special functions.

Herb Garden

Herbs from around the world used for a wide variety of purposes - culinary, medicinal and aromatic - are on display here. A sensory fountain and sundial modelled on the celestial sphere are also features.

HSBC Oriental Garden

Wild and cultivated plants from warm-temperate and sub-tropical areas of China, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Taiwan and Bhutan - many never before cultivated in Australia - thrive in an Orientally inspired landscaped setting.

Rainforest Walk

Take a detour off the main path to walk through the rainforest. See Australian plants that play a critical role in sustaining the quality of our environment - half the worlds species of plants and animals and many indigenous peoples call rainforests home.

Mrs Macquaries Bushland Walk

Along this path by Woolloomooloo Bay, our horticulturists have re-created a patch of Sydneys bushland using seed and cuttings from the few small patches of remnant bush along the Harbours southern foreshores. This is the way Mrs Macquarie may have seen it in 1816 on her way to her Chair at the Point.

Old Mill Garden & Greenway Terrace

See an informal jigsaw arrangement of ornamental grasses, groundcovers and lawn turfs in the Old Mill Garden, and a blend of old and new subtropical plants in the Greenway Terrace.

Palm Grove

Established in 1862, this cool summer haven is one of the worlds finest collections of palms. Several of the Royal Botanic Gardens oldest trees, grown from wild plants collected in the 1820s and 1850s, live here.

Pioneer Garden

A sunken garden built in 1938 during the sesquicentenary of European settlement in Australia. In memory of the pioneer men and women at the spot where the central dome of the old Garden Palace had been.

Rare and Threatened Plants Garden

This provocative display features plants from around the world that are rare or on the brink of extinction! Learn what you can do to save their environment - before its too late!

Australian Native Rockery

A magnificent rockery consisting mostly of spring-flowering Australian native plants. The varieties of native plants showcased here - waratahs, kangaroo paws, flannel flowers, gymea lilies, grevilleas and paper daisies - represent only a fraction of the vast range of Australian native plants.

Palace Rose Garden

The Palace Rose Garden contains around 1800 roses and provides visitors with a range of experiences. Traditional design elements, such as hedges and perennials, are used in conjunction with standard, weeping and bush roses. Roses with striking, bold colours are planted in an exciting and diverse range of bed shapes and sizes. The air is filled with a sense of romance, which only a combination of red, pink and white roses can provide. Click here for more information on the Palace Rose Garden!

Succulent Garden

Desert landscapes are a mosaic of colours, shapes and textures. This garden provides a rare opportunity to experience and closely examine the bizarre shapes of arid-adapted plants.

Sydney Fernery

Find out where ferns grow, what makes them different from other plants, and how ancient some of them are. The Sydney Fernery was opened in 1993, and made possible as the result of a generous gift to the Gardens from the (Vincent) Fairfax Foundation. Other (earlier) ferneries had stood on this site. Architects: John P. Barbacetto, University of Technology, Peter Dorreen & Associates. Engineers: Tierney & Partners. Construction: Torresan Engineering Pty Ltd. Landscaping: staff of the Royal Botanic Gardens. Open 9 am to 4.30 pm daily.

Sydney Tropical Centre

See, smell and touch exotic plants from misty mountains and lowland forest. Discover plants from tropical ecosystems. On permanent display at the Sydney Tropical Centre are weird and colourful heliconias, bat flowers, orchids, jade plants and many other bizarre plants. They are mostly rare species collected from steamy high altitudes and from lowland tropical areas around the world.

As well as the exotic specimens the tropical collection at Sydneys Royal Botanic Garden features Australian plants originating from monsoonal woodlands in the north of the continent and from the rainforests of the north east coast and ranges.

When the Titan Arum (Amorphophallus titanum) flowered for the first time in Sydney in October 2004, the Sydney Tropical Centre was visited by 16,000 people in less than one week.

The Sydney Tropical Centre is open from 10 am to 4 pm daily except Christmas day and Good Friday (but please note that due to maintenance and other reasons, the Tropical Centre may occasionally be closed - so if you are planning a visit, please phone the Visitor Centre on 9231 8125). Entry fee: Family $11, Adult $5.50, Children $3.30, concession/Student/Senior all $4.40, Members of Foundation & Friends free.

Wollemi Pine

This ancient tree is one of the worlds rarest plants with only three stands of adult trees growing in New South Wales Blue Mountains. See the first specimen ever planted out! Click here for more information.

Camellia Garden

Here you will see many camellia species, as well as a wide range of cultivars. Cultivars originate either as hybrids - the offspring of two different species - or as sports, unusual variants of a single species. You will also see many Australian-bred cammellias.

Getting Here

Train:
the nearest station is Martin Place. Other stations close to the Royal Botanic Gardens are St James and Circular Quay.

Ferry:
an easy walk from Circular Quay

Bus:
the 441 (Balmain via QVB Building) leaves York Street, Town Hall on weekdays, 10 am to 5 pm, stopping outside the Art Gallery of NSW. The Sydney Explorer Bus also includes the Royal Botanic Gardens on its route and the 200 (Chatswood to Bondi) stops in Macquarie Street.

Car:
there is metered parking along Mrs Macquaries Road, Hospital Road and Macquarie Street. Undercover parking is available at the Domain Car Park (see link below), Sydney Hospital, the Sydney Opera House and in Macquarie Street.

Directions and traffic conditions:
For directions from your home to the Garden, and current traffic conditions, phone the Roads & Traffic Authority on 132 701 or visit Live Traffic NSW.

We would like to acknowledge the Cadigal people of the Eora Nation within Sydney and pay our respect to Elders past, present and future.