Our Story

1978

Jim Hall buys part of his father’s cacti garden and moves it to the family home at Strathmerton. The seed of the whole thing, quite literally.

1984

Ed Kroemer had recently passed, and his will asked that his cacti be kept together. His family heard Jim and Julie were building a garden and were thrilled to hand it over. The collection grew.

1988

Jim and Julie open their one-acre cactus garden to the public. For reference, today it’s 13.

2008

The Hall family visits Mexico, and the trip changes everything. The bright colours and Mexican courtyards you see today were all inspired by that holiday.

2013

A second acre opens, adding South African, North American, succulent and aloe sections. The garden starts to feel like a trip around the world’s deserts.

2017

The first wedding held here is Jim and Julie’s daughter Sarah’s. Plenty of weddings and elopements have followed under the cacti since.

2018

Jim and Julie quit zucchini farming for good and go all in on Cactus Country. The restaurant opens and a real chef comes on board.

2021

During COVID we build a new courtyard, more cafe space, and the famous pink dome.

2022

Cactus Country wins Gold at the Victorian Tourism Awards. Not bad for a couple of ex-zucchini farmers.

40+

years growing

13

acres of desert

#1

cactus collection in Australia

Gold

Victorian Tourism Awards

J The Creative

Jim is the creative one, with a lifelong passion for cacti. Years ago, travelling through England, he visited the Chelsea Flower Show and had a hunch: one day, attractions like this would take off in Australia too. He had the vision long before there was a garden to show for it. Everything you wander through today started as an idea in Jim’s head.

J The Backbone

Julie was a school teacher before she swapped the classroom for the farm, leaving teaching to help Jim run what was then a zucchini and squash operation. She is the one who brings it all together. While Jim dreams things up, Julie manages the workers, the budgets and all the parts of a business that aren’t especially glamorous. Raising a family on a farm while getting a business off the ground was hard work, and she is still the warm face you’ll often meet on the way in.

J On The Map

For years the garden was a well-kept local secret. Then a backpacker working on the farm asked John if he’d put the place on Instagram. John had never heard of it. They made a profile, posted once, and the very first post was a hit. The rest is history. John spent long days on the tractor listening to business and marketing podcasts, joined local tourism boards, and went to every conference and training session he could. He’s the reason the world found us.

S Her Own Paradise

Sarah helped with plenty of projects in the early days before moving to Melbourne to build something of her own. She founded Waverley Myotherapy in Mt Waverley, where she runs a myotherapy practice alongside a pilates studio. Health and wellbeing runs through the whole family, and Sarah gets to live and breathe it every day with her patients and her young family. A little piece of paradise in the city.

A whole collection entrusted to Jim and Julie by a family who wanted it to stay whole. It still does.

Theo and his wife grew everything from seed over 60 years in Monbulk before retiring north. John made trip after trip with the trailer to bring them home. The White Trail is theirs.

forty years in the making

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4986 Murray Valley Hwy
Strathmerton, VIC 3641

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