Getting ready for the first of a series of tours in Sydney, first up The Domain, this coming Saturday, still places available, book via education@mca.com.au or 9245 2484..
The Domain. This is a great way to start, as just over the ridge from where the meeting point is, ( the Art Gallery of NSW) is the site of what was the first farm in New South Wales, Farm Cove.
Looking at it in terms of recent history, the years immediately following the first wave of invasion of this ‘great southern land’, the establishment of the first farm gives an indication on how to read the current state of the environment in Australia.
The colonist came ashore with cows and sheep, pigs and horses, chickens and ducks, and brought along a host of seeds to aid the process of acclimatisation.
Lots can be disputed on how much they learned from the local population of indigenous australians, the Cadigal clan of the Eora nation, who successfully inhabited and flourished on this shores, taking advantage of the seasonal abundance, for tens of thousands of years, the longest continuous partnership between men and land.
Surely there were lots of exchanges, violent or less, regardless of which the militarized intervention with the environment opened a floodgate and new plants, animals, insects, viruses were -both purposely and not- introduced.
This lead to the start of the ecological make-up of today’s Australia, in its variety and eclectic mix of nature, cultures, stories and denials.
The Domain is somewhat a difficult site for talking about spontaneous botany, as hardly no corner is left untouched, unadulterated, un-‘managed’.
Yet, nothing as resilient as pioneer plants, and along the way of the weedbook tour | The Domain you will talk and present to the viewers dandelions (taraxacum officinalis), wood sorrels (Oxalis spp.) and sow thistles (sonchus spp.), chinese elms (celtis sinensi) and sweet pittosporums (pittosporum ondulatum) and many more, exotic plants along side native invaders, all of which are the natural reaction to contained landscapes.
You are producing a map and a leaflet for the occasion too, which will be freely available to download.
