Mappin’s Nursery & Aquarium

Finding the right plants for your apartment or yard – and learning how to actually keep them alive – doesn’t have to be complicated. At least, not at Mappins, which has built a reputation for its eclectic range and helpful advice.

The inner-city nursery’s lush plants for the balcony, courtyard and home are only part of the equation. Owner Darryl Mappin and his staff will give you detailed care instructions to help you avoid drowning those begonias or burning your bromeliads.

Mappins’s converted Montague Road warehouse is filled with fruit trees, herbs, smaller vegetables such as chilli and tomato, fiddle leaf figs, hanging kokedamas, easy-to-care-for succulents and cacti, terrariums, water features and water lilies, pots of all sizes, and aquariums of fish.

Mappin opened the store in 2009, swapping the outer suburb of Brookfield for inner-city West End. Over many decades working in garden design, he earned his reputation as a “water gardener”. His nursery goes beyond indoor plants and specialises in water features and ponds too. Water plants such as lilies, aquatic creatures and fish are also for sale.

If you want to enhance your green thumb, keep an eye out for regular workshops. Some of Brisbane’s most recognised industry professionals offer classes in the warehouse on terrariums, Japanese miniature gardens, botanical sculpture and more.