MAGICAL mystery TOUR
This unique garden and nursery showcases myriad ways to mix cacti and succulents with other striking, low-maintenance plants
It’s not often you experience a storybook adventure when hunting for plants, but that’s what happens when visiting Roraima, a property near Geelong in Victoria, with a unique 1ha garden. One minute you’re hurtling past dusty, windswept paddocks, the next you’re enveloped in a verdant wonderland.
For 16 years, Roraima (pronounced row-ray-mah) has delighted and inspired plant collectors and newby enthusiasts, who are awestruck by the diversity of plants and the bewitching settings that see them fossicking for their cameras.
A web of narrow gravel paths ducks and weaves past overflowing shadehouses and plant tables. Rusty metal sculptures hang, sit and hide, while a horticultural cacophony of shapes, colours and textures induces sensory overload. There’s sun, and then shade, and always a vague sense of feeling delightfully lost.
realising a dream
This fascinating property is the brainchild of Lyle Filippe, who spent his childhood on the family’s citrus and grape farm in northern Victoria. When he was 12 years old, Lyle began collecting orchids, then at university he studied national park resource management. But it was when he moved to Geelong in 1987 and started working at Wirruna Nursery that “the plant bug really hit and got slightly out of control!”
Cacti and succulents became Lyle's enduring passion but, as his knowledge grew, so did his appreciation for a wider range of plants. “I’m drawn to things that spark the imagination," he says. “Rather than a typical shrub that relies on its flowers, I prefer form and shape.”
His desire to see plants in their natural environment saw Lyle backpacking around the world in 1998. A favourite destination was Mount Roraima, situated on the borders of Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil in South America. This tepui (tabletop mountain), which Lyle climbed, is separated from the surrounding country by sheer cliffs, so it hosts unique flora and fauna.
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creating the garden
Fast forward to 2001. Lyle and his wife Cheryl (who also has chlorophyll running through her veins) purchased a 2.6ha dilapidated nursery and fauna park, and set about bringing Lyle’s vision of a display garden-cum-nursery to life. Its name was inspired by the mountain he had climbed.
When the millennium drought hit a year later and gardens across the country turned up their toes, Lyle’s passion for succulents and dryland plants seemed serendipitous. His garden thrived, and as ‘drought tolerance’ entered mainstream gardening lingo, and tenacious gardeners started experimenting with a ‘new’ suite of plants, Lyle was happy to share his knowledge. “People who didn’t like succulents tried them and realised how easy they are to grow,” he says. It was a desire to show people how cacti and succulents can be combined with other plants to create a gorgeous, low-maintenance garden requiring little water that pushed Lyle to create their large display garden 16 years later.
Open since April, it has been a long time coming. Only six months after taking over the nursery, Lyle negotiated to take soil from a nearby freeway expansion. But soil was delivered faster than the bulldozer could reinvent the flat paddocks into a series of raised mounds and sunken areas.
“We designed on the go,” says Lyle.
“Any trees that had potential, character or shape, such as peppercorns, eucalypts and Moreton Bay figs, we worked around. This allowed for mature age trees to be retained in the garden, and they bring shade and atmosphere.”
Gardening with part clay, part bitumen and road base isn’t ideal but “when you are gifted that quantity of soil, you can’t be picky!” The height of the mounds compensates for soil quality, promoting good drainage – a necessity for all the succulents, which aren’t watered. Shrubs and trees are granted 12 months’ care. Lyle is Pollyanna-ish about the harsh conditions. “It’s a blessing in disguise because it stunts the plants," he says. "If everything grew to potential, it would be too shady. This allows for variety and interest.”
The texture, colour and placement of every plant, rock and artefact were given careful consideration as Lyle implemented his vision. “I see myself as an artist who happens to use plants and landscapes.”
Thoughtful seating and picnic tables allow a slower appreciation of the other-worldly vistas. Most of the hard landscaping comes from locally sourced recycled materials and each element brings a unique story. In another lifetime, the 8 tonne concrete entry bridge formed part of an overland conveyor belt for the Geelong lime mine, while round basalt seats are cores from a drill used in the construction of the Werribee railway line.
But it’s the plants that capture most attention, especially for Lyle, who is delighted that two aloes – A. mutabilis and A. arborescens – planted near each other have not only hybridised, but have taken on the particular characteristics of the parent they’re closest to. “I love seeing buds form on a plant for the first time, and waiting for the colour,” he says.
It’s clear Lyle’s passion hasn’t waned. “It’s special to work in an environment you’ve created that’s still growing and changing. It’s so good to hear people laughing and being inspired.”
And what of the future? While Lyle and Cheryl’s children, 17-year-old Nyssa, Eric, 15, and Lewis, 11, often check out what Dad’s been up to in the garden, and Nyssa is on her own orchid discovery journey, Lyle will never foist the garden’s care on them. “If one of them took an interest, that would be wonderful, but it would need someone with a passion to take over. The garden will constantly change, and someone needs to be a driving force for that.”