Parks & gardens
![Close up view of a garden with ceramic edging tiles visible in one corner with flowering plants and shrubs in the garden bed.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/ca99e43b2f934538abae34054b33bb7e.jpg)
A 1920s garden revisited
The garden at Meroogal, dating from 1886 was a source of pride for the Thorburn and Macgregor families
![](https://images.mhnsw.au/fotoweb/embed/2024/03/8a7a24424c9e4e5390555d75cdf4b9bd.jpg)
Florilegium plants
A gathering of flowers: the Florilegium collection
Finely detailed botanical artworks reveal the range of plants introduced to Sydney’s gardens over the past 200 years
![](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2023/09/1deab2fdf4e740489e20f34d8be26486.jpg)
Plant your history
A mossy analogy for Susannah Place: small but mighty
Mosses are everywhere! They are small, mighty, unsung and inhabit the most unusual places. They can be found in all our museum outdoor spaces if one looks closely enough
![a yellow and black sign reads "caution spraying in progress" anlongside a sandstone wall and path](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2023/09/1eb6b39ee3a54de5bb7d0b3602fb1efd.jpg)
Plant your history
A new weapon in the war on weeds
A black and yellow sign warns me there is “Spraying in Progress”, and I wonder for a moment why no one is wearing a mask, or even gloves. But the dangerous looking mist enveloping these men is not what it seems
![B/W photo showing a beach-lined bay with rocks and some kind of makeshift swimming enclosure at the water's edge.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/dca14ba603514b008f0ccec3d5db37c7.jpg)
A pond in a privately owned paddock
Today, Sydneysiders would find it incredible that a century ago many of the harbourside beaches and parks to which they flock in summer were privately owned and not accessible to the public
![View of lowslung colonial era house across gravel and lawn, house framed by trees.](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2022/12/37f38862027349c39833ce6170ad383d.jpg)
Museum stories
Abundance & curiosity at Elizabeth Farm
One of the great pleasures of visiting Elizabeth Farm is strolling from the drawing room onto the winding paths of the pleasure garden, just as the original occupants, the Macarthur family, did two centuries ago
![Plants against a sandstone wall in the front garden of The Mint.](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/zl9du87e/production/7dfd192e56a030dc8cc5cf6ef9f32c8a1dd8eec8-2776x1561.jpg?fit=max&auto=format)
Plant your history
Acanthus - an apt symbol for The Mint
Look at any classical building today, anywhere in the world and chances are you will find an acanthus leaf lurking somewhere
![](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2023/09/883dce1de5ba43dcb7abd4b161e74778.jpg)
Plant your history
Aloe arborescens ‘candelabra aloe’
Tours at Elizabeth Farm often start alongside a large bed of succulents, dominated by towering cactus
![Adiantum aethiopicum growing in the sandstone at the Argyle Cut. foot path can be seen on the right hand side going through the argyle cut](https://images.slm.com.au/fotoweb/embed/2023/09/c976e05303b74dc3b18f28e8711f361c.jpg)
Plant your history
An accidental fernery at Susannah Place
Deep in the basement of one of the terraces at Susannah Place in The Rocks grows a small patch of vibrant green native Maiden Hair Fern