Victor and Cristina Aprozeanu wrote to Burke’s Backyard inviting Don to visit them and see their unique garden. Victor is very enthusiastic about his extensive and fascinating collection, and is proud of his horticultural achievements over the last four years.
Although the collection is based on succulents (approximately 600 species) Victor also grows bulbs, conifers, ferns, palms, natives, fruit trees and orchids. Bromeliads and other rare plants are displayed in pots of different shapes and colours. The trees include maples, a weeping silver birch, a floss-silk tree (Chorisia speciosa) with its prickly trunk, and Victor and Cristina’s favourite, a Queensland bottle tree (Brachychiton rupestris). The bottle tree has grey-green, fissured bark and a swollen, water-storing trunk. It grows in all but the coldest areas of Australia.
Victor spends about an hour every day in his glasshouse, tending his cacti and succulent collection. The garden is also home to zebra finches, quails, bearded dragons, blue-tongue lizards, frogs and a long-necked turtle.