CFRBGV Inc.

Growing Friends meet every Thursday
2025-02-27 09:30 - 15:00, 2025-03-06 09:30 - 15:00, 2025-03-13 09:30 - 15:00, 2025-03-20 09:30 - 15:00, 2025-03-27 09:30 - 15:00, 2025-04-03 09:30 - 15:00, 2025-04-10 09:30 - 15:00, 2025-04-17 09:30 - 15:00 (Australia/Melbourne) and 14 more dates | Growing Friends Nursery, Ballarto Road/Botanic Drive, Cranbourne, Victoria, 3977, Australia
Growing Friends meet every Thursday from 9:30AM to 3PM to help propagate a great variety of Australian native plants from cuttings and seeds.
More information about Growing Friends.
The nursery is open to Members on Thursdays as well, to allow them buy plants from 10.00 – 2.00PM. Come along and select from a range of plants, many of which you will find in the Australian Garden.
Available: grasses, strap-leaved plants, climbers, groundcovers, indigenous plants, small & large bushes and trees.
Interested to be a member of Cranbourne Friends? Please check the Join us page.

Sausage Sizzle for Friends and partners
2025-03-02 11:00 - 15:00 | Woodland Picnic Area, 1000 Ballarto Road, Cranbourne, Victoria, 3977, Australia
A Sausage Sizzle for Friends and partners is to be held on Sunday March 2 in the Woodlands Picnic Area of the Cranbourne Gardens. RSVP’s will be required and people will be asked to bring their own salads, chairs, eating utensils, drinks, hats etc. This event will be weather-dependent. An email or Quicklink invitation will be sent out about this event to members.

Open House: Pookila Reintroduction by Dr Phoebe Burns
2025-03-13 14:00 - 15:00 | Elliot Centre, Ballarto Road/Botanic Drive, Cranbourne, Victoria, 3977, Australia
The Pookila (Pseudomys novaehollandiae) has not been recorded at what has become the RBGV Cranbourne site since 1976 and was thus considered locally extinct. There was probably a complex play of extinction factors but predation by cats and foxes was likely to be a significant factor. Of course that has been radically reduced by the predator-proof fence that surrounds our Cranbourne Gardens and so it was selected as suitable for reintroduction of what was once known as the New Holland Mouse. Formerly common in heathlands throughout much of south eastern Australia the Pookila conservation status is now considered threatened.
RBGV has been working with Zoos Victoria and Moonlight Sanctuary in a team led by Dr Phoebe Burns to establish a genetically diverse population that will hopefully flourish at our secure and well managed conservation zone. A population of 30 has had a controlled release and it is envisaged that it will become a source of new populations that can be released into other suitable sites in the future.
Join Dr Phoebe Burns for a presentation on the Pookila reintroduction program and an update on progress to date.
Elliot Centre 2:00 – 3:00pm with Afternoon Tea to follow.
Photo: Rohan Clarke

Growing Friends Autumn 2025 Plant Sale
2025-03-22 10:00 - 16:00, 2025-03-23 10:00 - 16:00 | Australian Garden, Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne, Cranbourne, Victoria, 3977, Australia
Growing Friends Autumn Plant Sale will be held at the Australian Garden on Saturday and Sunday, 22 and 23 March.
Come along and select from our wide range of plants, many of which you will find in the Australian Garden.
Click here to find out more

Open House: Barrie Gallacher on the tour of Sicily 2024
2025-04-10 14:00 - 15:00 | Elliot Centre, Ballarto Road/Botanic Drive, Cranbourne, Victoria, 3977, Australia
Are you considering a trip to Sicily? Or did you watch a recent SBS program on Michael Portillo’s visit to Sicily and would like to learn more, especially from a Friend’s perspective?
19 Friends led by fellow Friend Alf Reina and his cousin Alfonso (Alfie) Orlando, spent 16 days touring Sicily in May 2024. Join us at our next Open House to hear Barrie Gallacher recount highlights of the trip.
This is an Open House event at the Elliot Centre, starting at 2pm. It is conducted as a hybrid event – you can attend in person or you can watch from home via livestream. Details of the link for the livestream will be available in next month’s Quicklink.
The event is free and for Members only.
Photos (clockwise from left): Monreale Cathedral and cloister, The Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, Puppet theatre in Palermo and Palatine Chapel in Palermo

Raising Rarity - Presentation and Tours
2025-05-18 09:30 - 12:00 | Auditorium, Cnr Ballarto Road and Botanic Drive , Cranbourne, Victoria, 3977, Australia
Raising Rarity is an RBGV program designed to engage the wider community in the conservation of threatened Victorian plant species.
“With over a third of plants in Victoria listed as threatened, we need the help of the wider community to join us in our conservation efforts. With community involvement, we can grow more plants in more locations and in climates they may be better suited to” says Dr Meg Hirst, Seed Ecologist at RBGV.
Following ground-breaking work with school students, local government, and other botanic gardens, the newest aspect of this work is the possible commercialisation of a rare plant collection. RBGV is trialling rare plants in the nursery and research beds at Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne with the aim of making these available for purchase by the public in 3 or 4 years. RBGV’s scientists and horticulturists are hoping to explore the ‘horticultural potential’ of each plant to determine whether it is suitable for inclusion in the program. The ultimate goal is to find endangered plants that are attractive and easy to grow, as possible sales will help preserve the plant for the future.
At our event, a presentation by Matt Henderson, Raising Rarity Project Officer (Horticulture) and Tash van Velzun, horticulturist and RBGV Education Officer, will be followed by two tours in the Australian Garden:
– to the Research Beds, to see rare plants currently being developed
– to the Eucalyptus Walk, to see wild-collected plants from which the rare plants may come.
This is your opportunity to find out more about this vital research which hopes to preserve our plants for the future; you may also wish to sign up to a special Raising Rarity newsletter.
To find out more and book:
https://cranbournefriends.tidyhq.com/public/schedule/events/69552-raising-rarity-presentation-and-tours

Botanic Illustrator Ellis Rowan - statue proposed - talk by Stephen Ryan
2025-07-13 14:00 - 15:30 | Auditorium, Cnr Ballarto Road and Botanic Drive , Cranbourne, Victoria, 3977, Australia
Stephen Ryan, well known curator of Dicksonia Rare Plants in Mount Macedon, previous host of Gardening Australia, author, radio commentator heard on 3CR and ABC, will be speaking on Sunday 13th July at 2:00 pm, at the Auditorium in the RBGV Cranbourne, on his campaign for a life-size bronze sculpture of internationally renowned Australian botanical artist, naturalist, writer and explorer Ellis Rowan.
The statue will be located at Mt Macedon and sculptor Jennifer Mann has been commissioned by the Mount Macedon and District Horticultural Society (MMDHS, President Stephen Ryan) to prepare and undertake this project as a global movement for more statues of notable women in Australia continues.
This extraordinary woman was born in Melbourne in 1848 and passed away at Mt. Macedon in the family home in 1922. She travelled over vast tracts of Australia from Western Australia to Northern Queensland, also traversing the Torres Straits, New Guinea, North America, and India to name but a few. She negotiated places a white woman had yet to been seen in and for the most part did it solo. She painted over 3000 works mainly in watercolour and predominantly of flowers, birds and occasionally insects and butterflies. Baron Ferdinand von Mueller (Government Botanist of Victoria, Director of Melbourne Botanic Gardens) supported her work from an early age and assisted her in the identification of new plant species. She was probably the best-known Australian woman of her time worldwide and the National Library in Canberra holds about 1000 of her works, thought to be the largest collection by any artist held in a single institution anywhere in the world.
For more information: https://cranbournefriends.tidyhq.com/public/schedule/events/73487-botanic-illustrator-ellis-rowan-statue-proposed-talk-by-stephen-ryan

Wattles and Wildlife: talk by Bill Aitchison
2025-07-20 14:00 - 15:30 | Auditorium, Cnr Ballarto Road and Botanic Drive , Cranbourne, Victoria, 3977, Australia
Did you know Koalas like eating the blossoms of acacias, and that it has been found that acacias are cooler than eucalypts, so on hot days Koalas tend to favour spending their time in acacias?
Acacias provide food, shelter and essential ecological functions, supporting a diverse range of animals, from pollinators like bees and birds to herbivores and small mammals.
To learn more, join us for a presentation by Bill Aitchison, leader of the Australian Native Plants Society (Australia) (ANPSA) Study Group who will be speaking on “Wattles and Wildlife” in the Auditorium at the RBGV Cranbourne from 2.00 pm on Sunday 20th July 2025. Additionally there is an opportunity to join a guided walk of the wattles in the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne with Barrie Gallacher from 11.00 am till 12.30 pm for an extra $10. There is a limit of 25 participants for the guided walks.
For more information and to book: https://cranbournefriends.tidyhq.com/public/schedule/events/72999-wattles-and-wildlife-talk-by-bill-aitchison
