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Event date:09/05/2026 at 9:00 am
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Event end:10/05/2026 at 4:00 pm
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How to bookNo bookings, just turn up and pay at the gate.
Our twenty first and final annual Open Day at Bellis in subtropical Brisbane will be held this Mother’s Day Weekend, 9-10th May 2026. Over 500 different climate-appropriate plants grow in our Wynnum garden for food, medicine, pesticides, to support biodiversity, including climate change-ready ornamentals.
A diversely planted pocket botanic garden. A home where living and gardening is affordable – sustainable water, energy, power and genes, Bellis is a suburban model for a carbon positive lifestyle.
Visit a working garden that operates on multiple levels. On one level it was designed in 2003 to be an example – a model, affordable, sustainable home and garden located a hundred metres from Wynnum railway station – just in case petrol became unaffordable or unavailable. From 2018, the garden morphed into a Vietnamese style food garden to suit the expectations of a certain Australian-Vietnamese market gardener and cook.
We garden in a continually surprising climate. Bellis has been stress tested by long droughts and epic floods and has generally outperformed expectations. The water sensitive landscape soaked up 803mm rain in three consecutive wet days in late summer 2022 – 803 litres of rain per square metre soaked in and little was lost as stormwater. The soil sequesters carbon and enhances moisture retention.
Useful plants have supported our financial bottom line and the environmental performance of a household. There are ideas and inspiration for sustainable food growing and boosting beneficial biodiversity at home. Hives of stingless bees have made pollination here more thorough than ever. The seed crop has never been heavier. The suburban biodiversity checklist, twenty three years in the making, is just the third of its kind ever for SE Queensland.
ADMISSION
$10 CASH ONLY. Unwaged, students and under 18 free.
Admission gives you access to a unique range of food and medicinal plants and seed at affordable prices.
The shop has an Eftpos facility.
IMPORTANT NOTES
- This garden is not suitable for wheelchairs or strollers
- Prior to entry you must be prepared to disinfect the soles of your shoes in the disinfectant provided. This is a condition of entry – biosecurity matters!
- Wear sensible shoes (stilettos and mulch don’t work)
- No pets
- Supervise children at all times: hot chillies, plant spines and euphorbia sap may cause injury.