The Carlton Gardens is a World Heritage Site in the suburb of Carlton. It is very close to the centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The 26 ha (64 acres) site has the Royal Exhibition Building, Melbourne Museum and Imax Cinema, tennis courts and an award winning children's playground. The site is a rectangle shape. From the Exhibition building the gardens gently slope down to the southwest and northeast. The World Heritage listing says the Royal Exhibition Buildings and Carlton Gardens are "of historical, architectural, aesthetic, social and scientific (botanical) significance to the State of Victoria."
The gardens are one of the best examples of a Victorian era public garden. There are large grass areas with a mix of European and Australian trees. These include deciduous trees such as English oaks, White Poplar, Plane trees, Elms, Conifers, Cedars, Turkey Oaks, Araucarias and evergreens such as Moreton Bay Figs, combined with flower beds of flowers and shrubs. Tree lined paths make formal avenues which lead to the fountains and architecture of the Exhibition buildings. There are two small lakes in the southern section of the park. The northern section contains the Museum, tennis courts, machinery and work area, managers's house, and the children's playground designed as a Victorian maze.
The listing in the Victorian Heritage Register says in part:
- "The Carlton Gardens are of scientific (botanical) significance for their outstanding collection of plants, including conifers, palms, evergreen and deciduous trees, many of which have grown to an outstanding size and form. The elm avenues of Ulmus procera and Ulmus × hollandica are significant as few examples remain world wide due to Dutch elm disease. The Garden contains a rare specimen of Acmena ingens, only five other specimens are known, an uncommon Harpephyllum caffrum and the largest recorded in Victoria, Taxodium distichum, and outstanding specimens of Chamaecyparis funebris and Ficus macrophylla, south west of the Royal Exhibition Building."
Wildlife includes possums, ducks and ducklings in spring, Tawny Frogmouths, Kookaburras, flying foxes, and other urban environment birds and bats.
The gardens have three important fountains: the Exhibition Fountain, designed for the 1880 Exhibition by sculptor Joseph Hochgurtel; the French Fountain; and the Westgarth Drinking Fountain.