Download August 2024 PDF file
CALGAROO A journey into nature Newsletter of the Parramatta and Hills District Group Australian Plants Society NSW Ltd Our vision: inspiring people to admire, grow and conserve native plants
WHAT’S ON IN 2024
| 14 August Wednesday 10am: | Propagation |
| 24 August Saturday | Visit to Crommelin Arboretum Pearl Beach |
| 11 September Wednesday 10am: | Propagation |
| 21 September Saturday | Visit to Fairfield Indigenous Flora Park |
| 9 October Wednesday 10am: | Propagation |
| 26 October Saturday | Bushwalk Lake Parramatta. Leader Jennifer Farrer |
| 6 November Wednesday 10am: | Propagation |
| 23 November Saturday | Members’ meeting and end-of-year celebration Gumnut Hall |
| 4 December Wednesday 10am: | Propagation |
If you’d like to come to our propagation days at Bidjiwong Community Nursery and haven’t been before, you can get details from Lesley Waite – phone 0438 628 483
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Saturday 24 August: Visit to Crommelin Native Arboretum
71 Crystal Avenue Pearl Beach
Crommelin Native Arboretum is a flora sanctuary with a variety of vegetation providing ample wildlife habitat for local species. The Arboretum is mainly open forest, but also features grassed areas, wetlands, patches of temperate rainforest and flowering shrubs. The 5.5-hectare Arboretum can be explored by easy, looped walking trails, with signage throughout intersections of those trails.
We plan to meet for a picnic lunch at the Arboretum at 12.30pm and then explore some of the walking trails.
Can you please register at apsparrahills@gmail.com if you are coming. We will try to carpool for this visit as parking at the Arboretum is limited.
Saturday 21 September
Visit to Fairfield Indigenous Flora Park
Christie St Prairiewood
Jennifer Farrer
The Park is on the Cumberland Plain which is now a threatened vegetation community. It hosts more than 50 species of native plants including Acacia Pubescens and 25 species of birds and other animals including the Cumberland Plain Snail. The Park is maintained by community volunteers and is supported by Fairfield Council. The volunteers meet on the third Saturday of each month from 10am. This is why our visit has been brought forward by a week from the usual fourth Saturday for our activities.
We will meet at the Park at 10am and have morning tea with the volunteers.
For those who wish to have lunch afterwards, we can go to Deerbush Park which is adjacent to the nearby Fairfield Showground.
Travel time from Castle Hill is approximately 35 minutes.
Boongala Gardens Open For Spring
Friday 30th August to Monday 7th October, 202
Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday 10am to 4pm
Admission $5
Guided Rainforest and Bush Tucker Tour (11am and 1.30pm daily) – Cost $5.00
Location: 76 Pitt Town Road, Kenthurst
Muogamarra Nature Reserve
Nature Reserve is open for only 6 weeks, every Sunday from 18 August to 22 September 2024, and Saturday 24 August, 7 September, 14 September and 21 September 2024.
In 2024, Muogamarra Nature Reserve celebrates its 90th year open to the public.
Located just north of Sydney, near Cowan, it’s perfect for a weekend day trip.
Gates open at 9am and close at 4.30pm.
For entry, you’ll need to book here.
Note: All the guided tours are booked out.
Interesting Links . . .
Experience the “Dreaming Track” on the winding Mangrove Broadwalk in Bicentennial Park – from Sydney Olympic Park.
Major Australian nurseries are selling plants listed as invasive weeds – from The ABC.
2024 Eucalypt of the Year, Corymbia ficifolia – from Eucalypt Australia.
Many plant names are offensive – from Nature.
Plants can get cancer too – from The ABC.
Iconic bunya pine tree felled given new life – from The ABC.
Threatened native plants the key to unlocking a climate-resilient future
– from The ABC.
This Vanishing World: Photography of Olegas Truchanas
– from Inveresk Museum, Tas.
Glenbrook Rain Gardens: A natural solution for water protection
– from Lower Mountains News.
How can I become a palaeontologist? – from The Conversation.
Who was John Muir?
Ian Cox
You may have seen in the last Calgaroo this quote by John Muir: “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks“.
But who was John Muir?
It could be said that he was the founder of the American conservation movement, and that his work led to the establishment of the entire National Park system in the US.
If you look up Wikipedia you’ll get loads of information about John Muir, including this photo.
Here’s a brief summary:
He was born in Dunbar, Scotland, in 1838. In 1849, Muir’s family immigrated to the United States. He died in 1914.
His activism led to the establishment of Yosemite National Park. He thought the greatest threat to the Yosemite area and the Sierra was domesticated livestock—especially domestic sheep, which he referred to as “hoofed locusts”.
He co-founded the Sierra Club, still one of the foremost conservation organisations in the US. During his lifetime John Muir published over 300 articles and 12 books.
John Muir’s occupations are listed as farmer, inventor, naturalist, philosopher, writer, botanist, zoologist, geologist and environmentalist. Wow!
Muir saw nature as his home.
He was one of those skilled Scots who, with their expertise and dedication, made the world a better place!
Diatoms – Tiny plants of the Microcosmos
James Indsto James is a Forensic Botanist by profession.
Perhaps you are familiar with diatoms. If not, you should be as they are quite important. Diatoms are a major group of algae (Algal Division Bacillariophyta). They are single-celled algae that uniquely have an internal cell wall of silica called a frustule. They are incredibly abundant and diverse with tens of thousands of species. They occur in a variety of freshwater and estuarine habitats, seepages and damp soil, and form a major part of oceanic ecosystems. It is said that the oxygen in one in five breaths comes from oceanic diatoms, and that diatoms contribute more to atmospheric oxygen than all the world’s rainforests.
Many are free-floating single cells, but they also often form colonies with distinctive forms. They commonly attach to a surface of one sort or another. They may attach to rocks and other objects in water and typically have a brownish colour. They may attach to mud or sand and are often loosely attached to aquatic plants and other algae. They produce mucilage, which is a reason why rocks in streams are often slippery. Presumably the mucilage has a protective function, but it also has another function – for movement! Yes, several diatom species can slide around. It seems the mucilage plays a role in this. Motile species have an internal groove called a raphe that is involved in this movement. As diatoms are very small, they were only discovered through the microscope. I like the idea that there are two ways to best see diatoms: as they are very small one approach is to use high magnification microscopy. However, as they form massive oceanic blooms, they are also visible from space!
The purpose of this article is to give some general background to diatoms and to provide some background to understanding their place in the plant world. I plan to follow up with some stories about diatoms in and around Sydney from various habitats. Diatoms from freshwater and estuarine environments undoubtedly play an important role in the food chains of these habitats. Different species have particular habitat preferences. Environmental scientists study diatom species and abundances to monitor the ecosystem health of waterways. As the persistent silica frustules are deposited in lake beds and other environments they can provide important information about past climate and environmental conditions.
The light blue areas in this image may be coccolithophores, an algal group which have a calcium carbonate skeleton that reflects light. Diatoms tend to be dull green or brown, so the green/brownish regions are more likely to be diatoms. The silica frustules of diatoms accumulate on the ocean floor in vast numbers in the cold waters of the Arctic and Antarctic. The Southern Ocean near Antarctica has deposits of diatom shells up to one kilometre deep. Diatoms can form a fossil rock known as diatomite which is used for various purposes including kitty litter and industrial abrasives.
The silica frustules of diatoms are very beautiful and can be seen in incredible detail using scanning electron microscopy. Imaging diatoms can be a popular hobby in itself (part of the charm for me). In fact, diatoms played an important role in the development of the modern light microscope. Wealthy European gentlemen would often take up microscopy as a hobby, and diatoms were one of their favourite objects to look at. This led to the development of better optics to best view their intricate features. Around the same time, scientists such as Ernst Abbe in Germany developed the optical physics of the modern microscope for professional scientific research.
A Mini Case Study – diatoms from a home aquarium
No need for gum boots for this exercise! In fact, I didn’t even need to leave home! In my garage, I have a 60cm fish tank which I use for breeding tropical fish. In this low-light environment, the glass on one side has a brownish algal film – a good place to look for diatoms!
I scraped off some algae with a razor blade. This is dominated by a brownish film, but there are also some bright green filamentous algae.
Under low power microscopy at left using a 20X objective this material can be seen to consist of a colony of oval-shaped cells. A magnified view is shown on the right side. These are diatoms. It is often difficult when viewing live diatoms to see enough detail for identification. The routine procedure is to digest the algal cells with a solution such as hot nitric acid or hydrogen peroxide to leave only the silica frustules remaining.
Prepared diatoms are best viewed with high-magnification microscopy. These were photographed using a 100X objective with oil immersion to give a total magnification of up to 1000X. The view is dominated by a single type of diatom – possibly a Stauroneis sp. These cells are very small at about 17 micrometres in length and are in the smaller size range for diatoms. You could stack about 60 of these cells end to end in one millimetre! Most of the cells are in ‘valve view’. A diatom is composed of 2 valves separated by ring-like structures which together are called the girdle. A few cells are in girdle view. Can you spot the ‘odd one out’ diatom?
The striae (bands) are composed of areolae (pores), i.e. they are rows of pores. The resolution of this image hints at this rather than showing it clearly.
If you found this article interesting and would like to learn more, I can recommend these books:
‘A Beginner’s Guide to Diatoms’ (Revised second edition) Jacob John. Koeltz Scientific Books. 2015.
‘An Illustrated Guide to Common Stream Diatoms from Temperate Australia’. Sonneman, Sincock, Fluin, Reid, Newall, Tibby & Gell. Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology Guide No. 33.
Bush Foods for your Home Garden
Words and photos Tracee Lea
From Illawarra Group’s Newsletter July/August 2024 with permission
On one of our walks back in January, we visited the soon-to-be-launched Bush Food Walk at the University of Wollongong. Some of you may know I am working on a similar project at the Illawarra Grevillea Park Botanic Garden, so I thought I might pass on a few suggestions for growing native food plants in the home garden.
The Illawarra region has several useful food plants locally occurring, and many others from outside the region also grow well here. They have different uses from eating straight from the plant to steeping in water (hot or cold), drying and grinding, or adding to more conventional recipes such as marinades and cakes etc.
I have listed a few that I grow in my own garden as well as ones that have done well at the Grevillea Park.
Ground covers and smaller plants
Warrigal Greens, Tetragonia tetragonioides – leaves, great spinach substitute, grows very easily and will self-seed as well. Blanch in hot water before using to remove oxalates. Can be used in anything that you would use spinach for, including pesto, dip, pasta dishes, and spanakopita (spinach pie). Can be frozen after blanching.
Chocolate Lily, Arthropodium strictum, Yam Daisy, Microseris lanceolata, Native Parsnip, Trachymene incisa – the tubers of these plants are the edible part and can be boiled, grated or dried and ground up. All are readily propagated from seed as well, and make an attractive addition to the garden with their pretty flowers.
Native or Sea Celery, Apium prostratum – this looks very similar to regular celery and tastes very similar too. Use the leaves in salads or as a chopped addition/garnish.
Pigface, Carpobrotus, Disphyma – there are several cultivars available now, the leaves, fruit and flowers of which can make colourful additions to salads. The leaves can also be pickled. Squeeze the pulp out of the fruit for a sweet/salty flavour hit.
Native Mint – there are several plants classified as native mint including Mentha and
Prostanthera. Both prefer a bit more moisture and part shade. Use as you would any of the culinary mints, as a tea, in sauces, salads and flavouring marinades, stews etc.
Shrubs
Native Raspberry, Rubus sp. – several species are available now, and I personally love the Atherton Tablelands Raspberry (Rubus probus) with its large jewel-like tasty fruit. I recommend you grow this in a large pot as they sucker prolifically and will take over your garden. Eat straight from the bush, add to drinks, cakes or serve with cream.
Finger Lime, Citrus australasica– another plant where new cultivars are being released. They will grow happily in pots. Serve the caviar-like pulp on oysters, in drinks, salad dressing and any recipe that calls for lime. I prefer not to cook them as I feel the texture gets lost. They can be frozen for short-term storage, candied or dried.
Saltbush, Atriplex nummularia – an attractive plant for the garden due to its silver foliage, the leaves can be picked and added to salad or dried and ground as a flavouring for dressings, marinades etc. There are other species with saltbush as their common name.
Midyim Berry, Austromyrtus dulcis – a smaller shrub with a sprawling habit, this produces tiny grey sweet-tasting fruits after attractive white or pink flowers. Eat straight from the plant or add to salads.
Apple Berry, Billardiera scandens – this is a climber rather than a shrub and can be grown on a trellis. The pretty tubular flowers are followed by yellowish fruit which fall from the plant when ripe. Eat fresh
Walking Stick Palm, Linospadix monostachya – this one’s a bit unusual, being a small palm that could be grown indoors. The red fruits are produced in long sprays and have a crisp and refreshing taste. Eat fresh.
Trees
Davidson Plum, Davidsonia johnsonii – a very architectural tree growing straight upwards with the fruits produced along the trunk. They are a bluish-purple in colour when ripe and quite sour to taste. The fruits make a beautiful, coloured jam.
Illawarra Plum Pine, Podocarpus elatus – an unusual fruit in that the seed is separate from the flesh. Sweet and tasty, this can be eaten raw and makes lovely jam.
Macadamia, Macadamia integrifolia – the nuts are the edible part and are my favourite nut. There are cultivars available such as Pinkalicious and Lotsa Nuts. The nuts fall from the tree when mature. Get a macadamia nutcracker- it’s worth it! Roast the nuts, chop or grind to add to cakes, muffins, cereals and biscuits or as a thickener for curries.
Native Tamarind, Diploglottis australis, D. campbellii – there are several species available, all producing sour orange fruits. Use in jams, relishes or tart fillings.
Lilly Pilly, Syzygium sp. – an iconic plant both for its pretty flowers and sweet colourful fruit, which can be pink, blue or white depending on the species. Use raw, in jams, and add to salads and drinks, I have heard of it being used to make champagne as well.
Lemon Myrtle, Backhousia citriodora – very distinctively lemon-scented leaves. Steep in hot water to make a tea. Dry the leaves and flowers and grind up to add to cakes, biscuits – anything where a lemon scent and flavour are required.
Enjoy finding these plants for your own gardens, and in the case of the smaller plants don’t just buy one, buy half a dozen or more!
Here are some of my photos:
A Shady Garden
Pip Gibian
A shady garden needs further explanation. Does it offer dry shade, wet shade or a combination of both, as appropriate plants differ widely according to the drainage and availability of natural moisture.
In 1975 we bought 2.2 hectares of untouched bush, approximately 75m wide and 300m deep, a slopping gully block with a creek line running down it. The back section of the block is hard to access, and has been left untouched. At purchase, the block was heavily timbered, largely with very tall blackbutts, Eucalyptus pilularis and Angophora costata, and with turpentines, Syncarpia glomulifera, near the creek. These trees continued to grow. The surface is rocky with lots of sandstone, and poor soil derived from this, and ideal for many local native species.
We subsequently needed to surround our house and garden with a stock fence to keep the wallabies out. Many other animals like echidnas and goannas can walk through it, and the possums either crawl through or travel tree-to-tree over it.
What plants have or have not done well? Grevilleas do poorly. As founding members of the Grevillea Study Group, we tried hard. The vast majority want sun, the more the better. Grevillea shiressi is the exception. Its shrinking natural habitat in gullies on the Central Coast (it is endangered) ensures it grows here, and nectar-feeding birds love it. Other Proteaceae do better. A few banksia species are endemic, and the garden has some different colour forms of Banksia spinulosa. Persoonia linearis and Persoonia pinifolia occur naturally. We put one Persoonia nutans in a very well-drained spot. Isopogon anemonifolius does well, and there are many forms of this species. Isopogon anethifolius does less well, as it prefers ridge tops. Seeing a native plant in its natural habitat always gives the viewer a deal of information about its preferred growing conditions.
We have one old, flowering Hakea bakeriana. There are two forms of Lambertia formosa in the garden, including the smaller form found by Ted Newman in a coastal area north of Sydney. This now has an official name with the Australian Cultivar Registration Authority, Lambertia ‘Coastal Devil’. Its final height is less than 1m and it spreads to 1.5m wide or more. The ‘wild parsley’ form of Lomatia silaifolia grows naturally on the block. The few planted Waratahs, Telopea speciosissima, have not died, nor have they grown, let alone flowered.
Many plants from the Rutaceae family do well in dry shade, and many require good drainage. This includes local boronias such as Boronia pinnata and Boronia anemonifolia. The local crowea species, Crowea exalata and Crowea saligna, require excellent drainage.
Our best ones are in raised beds and within 50cm of an enormous blackbutt trunk. Crowea are summer and autumn flowering, giving colour to the garden when there are not many flowers out. The stand-out Correa is Correa baeuerlenii, not a local species. It comes from the far south coast of NSW. It self-seeds freely in our garden, and flowers in autumn, with pale green bells hanging from their ‘chef’s hat’ calyces. We also have Correa alba, which flowers better in more sun. If given good drainage and maybe a somewhat sunnier spot, Eriostemon australasius grows and flowers well for us. Even if pruned well after flowering, the plants tend to age, and are best replaced every 4 to 5 years. Philotheca myoporoides with grow and flower anywhere, usually a very reliable plant. Its relatives, Philotheca buxifolia and Philotheca salsolifolia are beautiful but require perfect drainage. Phebalium squamulosum does well in our conditions. It has many variations in leaf shape and flower colour, which goes from pale cream to a much brighter yellow. Zieria prostrata is a classic rockery plant from the Coffs Harbour ocean headlands, endangered because of spreading habitation. It forms a prostrate mat which follows the contours of the garden, and covers with masses of white star flowers in spring.
Most local pea flowers prefer the ridgetops, as group members have seen on many local bushwalks. Pultenaea blakelyi is an exception, coming from gullies and creek sides. It flowers very well in quite dense shade. Our Hovea acutifolia, a 3 m-high shrub, came from a plant table specimen many years ago. It self-seeds all over the place and we need to remove unwanted ones. It has masses of bright purple flowers.
We don’t grow many callistemons or melaleucas as they often need more moisture, and flower better with more sun. Our callistemons have also suffered from myrtle rust infection. Melaleuca thymifolia will flourish almost anywhere. Some Leionema species do well for us, especially Leionema lamprophyllum. Most acacias flower better in the sun. A smaller, weeping form of Acacia iteaphylla is an exception, and we have quite a few wild Acacia ulicifolia. Pseudanthus pimelioides is a beautiful plant, only a metre high, and flowers for many weeks. It is slow to strike, which explains why it is not often seen in native nurseries. Many years ago, we planted some Gymea Lilies, Dorianthes excelsa. These are now old enough to flower sometimes. This species often takes 8 or 10 years to flower.
Tetratheca thymifolia is a showy plant in flower and mostly easy to grow. The other local species, Tetratheca glandulosa and Tetratheca ericifolia, require very good drainage. Most prostantheras require more moisture than we have. The exception is Prostanthera scutellarioides, which is quite dry-tolerant. Seeing it in the sandy soil in Windsor Downs explained this. We have a few other prostanthera and epacris species planted right next to a nursery area where they are watered regularly.
After removing the weeds, we planted rainforest plants along the creek line, and now have very many tall specimens. In most garden areas we have very few weeds. Native grasses and lomandras have sprouted up everywhere, and often need removal if too vigorous. Our garden is very informal, and looks untidy like the bush, with no neat garden beds, and no lawn at all. It seamlessly merges with the natural bush at its edges.
Don’t worry if your garden is not very sunny, or if a neighbour produces a building which casts a slab of your garden into shade. Be guided by your available moisture and drainage. There are still many desirable native plants that are worth adding to your surrounds.
My photos:
Visit to the Illawarra Region 13th and 14th July 2024.
Day 1 – Illawarra Grevillea Park Botanic Garden and the grounds of Wollongong University.
Joan Hayes
Our group’s weekend away this year was to the Illawarra region, a short, easy drive south of Sydney. A small group of members attended a most enjoyable visit to The Illawarra Grevillea Park Botanic Garden on Saturday 13th July.
We met at 10am, and after a chat with some of the park volunteers we took a brief wander before finding a table in a sunny location (it was a chilly day) to enjoy our morning tea.
The paths throughout the park make it easy to wander and view the gardens, which include a little chapel that was moved from another location and then reconstructed onsite. This is where we found Ray Brown, the founder and driving force behind the park, who had the warmest spot in the park with his heater, making it a comfy place for him to spend the day selling books and talking to visitors. Our members enjoyed a long chat with him and renewing old acquaintances. There was a wide range of books on sale at very reasonable prices. Some of our group found old treasures they had been trying to source for a long time and thought were out of print.
The park includes a rainforest walk where you can meander along winding paths around a pond filled with frogs and surrounded by ferns, many donated by the Fern Study Group, magnificent trees, vines and orchids to create a feeling of peace and tranquillity.
History of the Grevillea Park
In the mid-1980s the plant collection of the Grevillea Study Group had reached a point where it had outgrown the space available to house them all in Ray Brown’s nursery. There was also a concern about the survival of the collection in pots; there was a need for them to be planted in the ground in a permanent location.
After negotiation with Wollongong Council Ray Brown secured a lease on a site on the eastern side of the Illawarra escarpment at Bulli with views to the ocean. This unique location provides an excellent environment for the plant collection as it is protected from the westerly winds, has a mild coastal climate and has lower humidity than Sydney. Many plants from dryer areas of Australia grow quite happily there.
The park is managed by Ray Brown with a team of very willing volunteers who work under Ray’s guidance. They meet every Monday to maintain and further develop the park. And they don’t just plant and maintain Grevilleas. They have undertaken major landscaping projects to transform the park into a beautiful, peaceful and educational place to visit. The collection has grown to include many rare and endangered Grevilleas, wild-sourced from all over Australia, along with other Australian plants as well.
In the 2020 Australia Day Awards Ray Brown was awarded an OAM for his services to conservation and the environment.
In 2022 Grevillea Park officially became a Botanic Garden, quite an achievement from its humble beginnings in the mid-1980s.
The design of the park is aimed at showcasing the plants in a garden setting to encourage the public to grow them in their own gardens.
Many Grevilleas readily hybridise, so there is often a new and exciting cultivar coming along such as Grevillea ‘Bulli Beauty’ and Grevillea ‘Kiama’, both developed at the park among many others; all the work of Ray and his team.
With an abundance of nectar-bearing plants, the park attracts many feathered visitors such as wattlebirds, lorikeets, eastern spinebills and many honeyeaters.
The park is open to the public three times a year: Autumn, Winter and Spring for 2 weekends each opening. There are always many plants in flower during the different seasons throughout the year. I have visited the park on four occasions since 2020 and probably a couple of times before that. On each visit, there is something different to see but I think during this visit the park is the best I have ever seen it. A credit to all the hard work of Ray and his volunteers.
After leaving the park mid-afternoon, five of our group continued on to the grounds of the University of Wollongong.
Some of our photos taken on the day at Grevillea Park:
Strolling the grounds of the University of Wollongong.
The grounds we visited on this day were vastly different from the site one would have visited in the 1950s. We strolled through a campus with extensive native plantings, waterways with aquatic birdlife and plantings, majestic trees almost hiding buildings and car parks and paths winding through native plantings providing an incredibly pleasant and natural environment and a relaxing place to live and study. There are 95 buildings and about 2,000 staff and 17,000 people on the campus on any given day. It is estimated that there are approximately 18,000 trees across the whole site.
An aerial photo of this site in the 1950s reveals a completely cleared dairy farm with only a few remnant trees along creek lines. Almost all vegetation has been purposely planted and regenerated to create the green, biodiverse environment it is today.
In 1962 a teachers’ college was constructed on the site. In 1969 the University campus arrived with the construction of more buildings. The land was levelled and filled with slag and coal wash from local heavy industry. The only vegetation was roses, camellias, pines and maples.
During the 1970’s a change saw the commencement of planting native trees and plants.
1973 saw a new Vice-Chancellor and the formation of a Buildings Site Committee with a focus on the environment and beautification of the campus. This focus has continued through successive Landscape Superintendents and gardeners. The construction of ponds and waterways provided further enhancement to the campus environment with plantings designed to focus on screening and softening of the buildings and hiding unsightly roads and car parks in addition to planting specifically for an increase in habitat and biodiversity.
“Build it and they will come”
This is certainly the case with these campus gardens. Planting indigenous natives has attracted many animals who now make it their home. Insects, frogs, reptiles, possums and many birds now live on campus. This has seen the development of specific learning and teaching areas so students don’t have to go off-site for practical studies.
The transformation from a barren landscape in the mid-1900s to the thriving, biodiverse landscape it is today is truly amazing. A campus covered with mature trees hiding large buildings beside serene waterways populated with native plants and animals provides an enjoyable natural environment for all those who work, live, study in and visit the campus.
A great example of how such development can impact the health and wellbeing of natural spaces and produce positive transformations.
For a more detailed account of the development of this campus please see “The Development of the Landscape of the University of Wollongong” published in Australian Plants magazine Autumn 2024 edition.
Here are some photos taken during our time at the University:
Editor’s comment: During our visit to the Illawarra Grevillea Park Botanic Garden, it was great to meet Tracee Lea, author of the article on Bush Foods starting on Page 8. Tracee is a volunteer at Grevillea Park, and it will be interesting to see the progress of the bush food garden she’s putting in there.
Day 2 – Wollongong Botanic Garden and Puckey’s Estate
Jennifer Farrer
Most people went home on Saturday, which left Joan, Peter and me to enjoy the second day away.
At 10 am we met at the Wollongong Botanic Garden for a guided tour with Michael Swire, President of the Illawarra APS Group. We spent two hours there and saw only a fraction of the gardens. It is located opposite the University and, like it, has been created from an old dairy farm. The development of the site commenced in 1964. The garden was opened in 1970. So many of the plantings are quite mature.
We started at the Turpentine Lawn where as well as Turpentine trees there is a fountain created to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Illawarra Mercury. From there we walked through the Cycad collection and had a brief look at the extensive Palm Collection. We then visited an area where rare and endangered plants of the Illawarra are grown. There are many rare species in this area, particularly on the slopes of Mt Keira, which we could see in the background. One highlight was seeing a mature White Beech (Gmelina leichhardtii), which we saw as young plants on our walk at Cherrybrook earlier this year.
The other areas we visited were the extensive rainforest garden with mature trees and ferns and the bush tucker garden.
It was marvellous to have Michael as our guide. We would never have known where to start and which plants to see without his expert knowledge.
From the Botanic Garden, it was only a short drive to Puckey’s Estate at Fairy Meadow.
This is a unique piece of coastal bushland on the dunes between the beach and the lagoon preserved from coastal development. The land belonged to Courtney Puckey, a chemist, who settled in Wollongong at the beginning of the 20th century. He came from a family of salt makers in England and set up a salt mill on the coast at Wollongong. He used an ancient method where salt water was poured down a tower lined with brushy vegetation. The salty water was trapped in the vegetation (in this case local tea trees, Leptospermum laevigatum) and evaporated using heat and wind power. There are remnants of his salt-making facilities, wharf and residence on the site but more importantly, the coastal vegetation has been preserved since the Council acquired the land in 1953.
Once again, we had Michael to guide us through the beautiful bushland, which was dominated by Casuarinas, Saltbush (Rhagodia candolleana), Banksia integrifolia, Leptospermum laevigatum and Acacia sophorae.
Many thanks for the above Illawarra photos to Joan Hayes, Jennifer Farrer, Lesley Waite and James Indsto.
Share your stories . . .
Your contributions to Calgaroo are always welcome.
If you have interesting observations of plants in the garden or the bush, photos, or any other news, please send them to me at itcox@bigpond.com for the next edition.
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In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of our Country, the people of the Dharug Nation, whose cultures and customs have nurtured, and continue to nurture, this land since time immemorial. We honour and celebrate the spiritual, cultural and customary connections of Traditional Owners to Country and the biodiversity that forms part of that Country.
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Parramatta and Hills District Group
SECRETARY: Jennifer Farrer apsparrahills@gmail.com 0407 456 577
EDITOR: Ian Cox itcox@bigpond.com