Warrnambool has its own low water use garden situated in the centre of the city at the Children's Services Centre at the Swan Reserve. It was established by the Society for Growing Australian Plants in 1976 and has been regularly maintained by them since.

For over 200 years Australians have delighted in growing European type plants in their gardens requiring lots of watering and maintenance because of the somewhat hostile Australian environment. In this dry and thirsty land of ours and with a growing population, we cannot afford to continue to use our water as though we have an unlimited supply. Instead of using plants from colder, moister climates, gardeners should be looking to grow plants that can survive Victoria's cool wet winters and hot dry summers. Australian native plants have evolved to survive in these conditions. The Warrnambool and District Group of the Society for Growing Australian Plants in their wisdom and with the assistance of the City Council, established the garden in 1976 to demonstrate to the public that a garden could happily exist with very little water except for what falls from the sky.  Plants such as banksias, hakeas, correas, eremophilas and many other native species are very suitable for growing in Warrnambool. Of course Warrnambool's own endemic plants of which there are many are especially suitable and the garden contains many of these.