Stories From: Plants

Trent Forge from NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service and drone pilot Richard Delaney search for the critically endangered 'Fletcher's Drumsticks'. Using drones, the cliffs and hanging swamps of Blue Mountains National Park can be surveyed in a way previously impossible.

Bill Dixon has cultivated a rainforest garden on a ridge in South Springwood. He talks about how growing rainforest species can be an adaptive response to local climate conditions.

Bundjalung Yaegl woman and Bullaburra resident, Janelle Randall-Court, has a long history of working creatively to inspire people to care for Country. We interviewed her after watching her give a cultural presentation for Greening Australia’s Cooling the Schools Project.

Pollinators are critical for life on earth. As we face a biodiversity crisis in which we’re losing plants and animals at an alarming rate, the Rotary Club of Blackheath and Planting Seeds have collaborated on the B&B Highway pollinator program.

Artist Joel Mitchell tells the story behind his public sculpture in Blackheath, Reveal: A Celebration of Blue Mountains Orchids. He talks about his inspiration, the beauty of intergenerational collaboration and how the artwork, in-situ, invites us to experience the wonder of the natural world.

Led by First Nations students and community, Blaxland High School has established a native food garden and students are using crops grown in the garden as ingredients in food technology classes. The school received injections of expertise from many quarters including an Aboriginal-owned social enterprise to learn about and embrace the use of native plants for cooking and sustainability.

Renewed efforts to save the Dwarf Mountain Pine in light of its potential upgrade to ‘critically endangered’ status are giving greater recognition to a rare and unusual prehistoric native in our midst.

Blackheath Public School is providing hands-in-the-dirt lessons on how the students can make their school more sustainable. Students will soon be eating spinach and cheese scrolls made by the canteen using garden produce.

What do tea, samurai clans, William McArthur, Benjamin Franklin, Vietnam and the Botanic Gardens at Mount Tomah have in common? Read on to explore the way camellias and cultures are woven together and why it’s important we think about conserving biodiversity as a global project implemented at a local level.

Take a tour of the community farms in Blackheath where you'll find alpacas, compost to die for, hundred-year-old ‘Shipley’ apple trees, native bees, friendly faces, wonky tomatoes, life philosophies and much, much more.