This Week’s Guest Blogger is Michael Elgey
As a child I was enthralled when watching wildlife documentaries. I not only found the animals fascinating but the landscapes and environments which they occupy. In many of these documentaries filmed in Africa, Madagascar and Northern Australia there would usually be shots and panoramas with the mighty Boab trees. Boabs small but not insignificant group of trees in the Genus Adansonia. These trees are so iconic that someone can typically recognise them even without knowing their common or scientific names. Some species of Adansonia can grow to a height 24.8 m with trunk girth of 23.6 m. Their dominance over the landscape is so great that film director Jamie Uys in his movies The Gods Must be Crazy he filmed many shots beneath and within the canopy of African Boab Trees. So when I became interested in Horticulture I attempted to grow a Boab in Western Sydney but with little success due to Sydney’s climate. It actually wasn’t until 2011 that I had the experience of seeing a spectacular stand of Boabs at Mt Cooth-tha Botanic Gardens in Brisbane. Now fast forward to 2018 and I have the absolute pleasure and responsibility to curate several specimens at Rockhampton Botanic Gardens in Central Queensland. These specimens may be young compared to how long they can live but they are just as fascinating and enthralling to me now as they were when I was a child.
For more information about Rockhampton Botanic Gardens in Australia http://www.rockhamptonregion.qld.gov.au