Bendigo

A Bendigo nursery that has been in the same family for four generations, trading since 1888 as one of Australia's oldest horticultural businesses. The Retreat Road site sells plants, flowers, fruit trees and garden supplies, with staff on hand for the advice that keeps regulars coming back. Open seven days, with shorter hours on Sundays and public holidays.

Scott and Kylee Toll opened this McCrae Street bottle shop in 2017 after one too many two-hour drives to Melbourne chasing beers that nobody back in Bendigo stocked. The fix was to stock those beers themselves: shelves are drawn from Australia's independent breweries and rotated as fast as new releases land, with natural wine and small-batch spirits filling the gaps. Regular in-store tastings help regulars work out what to try next. It is a specialist's shop in a regional city that had, until 2017, no dedicated outlet for the kind of beer its own residents were driving hours to find elsewhere — proof that a couple with strong opinions about hops can fill a genuine gap in a town's retail. Open Wednesday to Saturday, with local delivery and shipping further afield for regulars who have moved away.