Stories From: Plants

The garden is the first line of defence in a bushfire, but that doesn’t mean sacrificing liveable spaces for the rest of the year. Landscape architect Sue Bell explains how we can balance good garden design with sound bushfire principles.

Tracie McMahon takes you on a foraging journey of discovery and delicious meals with local experts in fungi and foraged plants.

Explore Hassans Walls on a walk with Tracie McMahon and the authors of "Native Plants: Hassans Walls Reserve Lithgow"

Under the artificial lights of a shopping aisle, it’s easy to forget the origin of food. For Polona and Nathanael of Bullaburra, raising their own meat is a way of taking themselves out of the global meat-impact equation. Discover their story here.

Almost 30 years ago, the Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue Service began salvaging local plant species from building sites. Its Katoomba Native Plant Nursery continues to preserve and propagate the plants of our World Heritage area while helping locals recreate a piece of the bush at home.

Sara Reilly rehabilitated her rundown garden in the heart of Katoomba into an enticing environment for the local wildlife, including dancing satin bowerbirds. She reveals the slow but richly rewarding process.

Agroforestry around the world is demonstrating a promising solution for reducing the climate crisis. In a recent hands-on workshop in Hazelbrook, participants created a food forest and learnt how they could ‘bend time’ by accelerating its growth to help create a fertile earth for all organisms to survive.

Shane Grundy at Bush Doctor HQ explains how soft engineering techniques are helping rejuvenate swamps and improve water quality in the Blue Mountains.

What goes on under all those poly-tunnels at Lithgow & District Community Nursery? Get the low down here.

Chantelle Cambridge recently presented the final in a series of gardening talks hosted by Lithgow Library Learning Centre. Standing in the shade of fifty-year-old elms in a flowery white dress, she was Instagram perfect, but the journey that led her here would have flattened many.