There is a hidden treasure tucked away in Brisbane's bustling Central Business Distrect. Amongst the modern towers of downtown Brisbane, just a short walk from the Queens Street Mall and nestled behind the Roma Street Train Station lies a true urban eden. The Roma Street Parkway and Botanical Gardens. Quiet easily one of the most beautiful urban parks in the world.
As an avid gardener, I am a firm believer in the therapeutic power of plants. Gardens and plants have always been a large part of my life. As a child, I spent days playing in the vast family gardens that surrounded a beautiful turn of the century spanish style home in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles, California. The gardens offered me hospitality and respite during a painful, difficult childhood. Hiding behind the bushes to escape the wrath of my abusive father, I began to become intimately connected to nature, often finding beauty in the smallest of things. The delicate little carollas of the flowering weeds, the tight robust clusters of the camilla flowers, even the graceful sweep of the branches on the bare plum trees in the winter. To my young eyes all were marvels and each offered comfort in unique ways.
As an adult, I continued to turn to gardens to emotionally support and comfort me building a spectacular tropical patio garden in my tiny studio apartment. The ebony bamboo and red banana fronds framing lush plumeria blooms not only offered my self decompression at the end of hard days but served the community as a point of interest, a island of beauty in a concrete wasteland.
Science has proven that plants and gardens do indeed calm the mind, ease depression and offer comfort to just about everyone, even pets. They are a crucial element that should be incorporated into every cityscape for the sake of everybody's wellbeing.
In 2001 Brisbane's city planners took an aging railyard and produce market in the centre of the city and envisioned a spectacular garden for people to enjoy. Designers skillfully crafted a superb blend of exotic gardens, rainforest, lakes and waterways, open lawns and connected them to Albert Park, a small garden created in 1870 and further developed in 1960 by the well known architect Harry Oakman and created whats now known as the aroma Street Parkland and Botanical Gardens. The gardens are one of the largest subtropical city parks in the world. Its lake houses native species of fish including the rare prehistoric era Lung Fish. Its gardens are self sufficient thanks to a 400,000 litre water tank built in 2007 for the parks water needs.
I personally believe that one would be hard pressed to find a more well thought out and perfected city park than the Roma Street Parklands. At any time of day you will find families and friends enjoying barbecue lakeside. Locals gathering for soccer games along her Celebration Lawn. Horticulturists wandering the paths examining the gardens and children playing in the well appointed childrens play area. The park even has an outdoor amphitheatre where movies are played weekly.
I'd like to take the readers along for a few minutes on a little adventure through this wonderful park and its gardens.
