Fun places to explore in The Ian Potter Foundation Children’s Garden

The Ian Potter Foundation Children’s Garden is full of interesting and interactive places to play and explore, including:

The Ruin Garden

This world of lush rainforest vegetation crawls and creeps over an old rock grotto. Children are encouraged to crawl around the ancient Redgum, scramble over and under rocks, dig in the sand mulch and build cubbies from collected plant materials.

Meeting Place

The Meeting Place is for visitors to gather on arrival. A spiral fountain provides an exciting water play area on warm days. The 5 Queensland Bottle Trees are a feature of this space, with their distinctive trunks highlighting some of the amazing ways plants have adapted to survive in their environment.

The Wetland Area

Located at the foot of the Discovery Shelter, this natural pond is teeming with life and is the perfect place for children to get a closer look at insects and plants. The Discovery Shelter can be used as an undercover investigation space in wet weather. This wetland area is an important educational tool so we encourage you to explore, but only take memories home with you.

The Bamboo Forest

This magical place is defined by bamboo, which changes the light, sound and texture all around you!

The Gorge

Stepping stones lead visitors from the Meeting Place into The Gorge, which surrounds children with large cool basalt shards. The twisted Snow Gums growing between the shards remind us that trees are built to survive almost any conditions.

Plant Tunnel

Along the northern and southern boundary of The Ian Potter Foundation Children’s Garden are 2 distinctly different plant tunnels. The northern boundary tunnel is mostly composed of Coastal Tea Tree, while the southern boundary is made up of New Zealand Flax. Both have peepholes and multiple entry and exit points that are perfect for hide and seek as children move in and out of the tunnels.

Children’s Kitchen Garden

Children of all abilities can get their hands dirty in the kitchen garden, which showcases interesting, unusual and common fruits, vegetables and herbs.

The Rill

Patterned to resemble an old river, the water flowing along The Rill begins in the rainforest and then meanders gently through the lawn and into the natural pond in the Wetland Area.

The Rill (stream) operates everyday from 10am - 4pm. If the day is forecast to be over 25 ̊C the spurting fountains will be in operation from 10am - 4pm.