Community spirit enables gardens to exist

Tracey Whitby, President and Publicity, Friends of Lismore Rainforest Botanic Gardens

Since the first plantings in 2002, the Lismore Rainforest Botanic Gardens have been flourishing. The six rainforest rooms are well established and the specialty gardens are popular with visitors and volunteers alike. Before COVID, we were welcoming over 2,000 students and their teachers to the gardens each year.

The Hoop Pine Forest, Palm Gully, Sensory Garden, Wilson Park Species Garden, Useful Plants Garden and Eucalypt Picnic area are often the focus of our guided walks. In 2018 and 2020 we were very lucky to be able to train over 20 guides who continue to tell their stories about the regeneration of the former Lismore city waste site.

Our volunteers have created the gardens, and manage them, having spent only one, sometimes two, mornings a week over 30 years, working hard to clear and prepare the site, planting, propagating plants at the nursery, constructing paths, sheds, bridges, viewing decks and a cubby. We are supported by one council gardener who works three days a week at the gardens.

After the disastrous floods in February and March 2022, we are now able to welcome back school groups, garden clubs, art, photography, and bird watching groups into the gardens. Although situated above flood level, many paths and several garden beds were destroyed by the incredible amount of water that flowed through in 48 hours.

Despite everything, the community is the reason the gardens thrive. Too many of our volunteers lost their cars, homes and everything they had in the flood. Yet they returned to work again at the gardens very quickly. Other more fortunate Friends of Lismore Rainforest Botanic Gardens (FLRBG) helped them to re-establish, cleaning out mud-filled homes and finding alternative shelter and transport.

Many people have needed the peace and serenity of the gardens to recover. The local library is still under repair, so Storytime is being held at the gardens, bringing scores of preschoolers and their carers to sit in the forest, hearing stories about trees, flowers and insects. A drama project called Understory is engaging local primary school students with an interactive experience, bringing a deeper understanding of relationships between plants in the rainforest. The resilience of the rainforest mirrors that of the Lismore community.

School students heading to Hoop Pine Forest.

We had so much to look forward to on Botanic Gardens Day in May. It was the tenth anniversary of the official opening of the gardens in 2013. It gave us a wonderful opportunity to reflect on our achievements and plan for the future. Of course, the community was there − it’s their very own botanic garden. They bought local native plants for their home gardens, enjoyed guided walks, shared a coffee break, watched their children learn to weave, create art, play in the forest, observe a flower through a digital microscope, or simply ‘touch green’.

Our gardens only exist because of our community spirit.