‘Connect – Promote – Protect’

Sept 2026

Special Events

💮Watercolours in the Fernhouse

Sun 20 Sept 10:00am-12noon
Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens Fernhouse

💮Guided walk – City Garden figs

Wed 23 Sept 10 AM – 11:30 AM
Information Kiosk, City Botanic Gardens, Brisbane

💮Floral art/ Ikebana arrangements for fun!

Wed Oct 14 2026, 10:00am
Mt Coot-tha Auditorium

Regular Events

💮Every Monday: Nature Walks, different locations, usually 8:30am. Contact Anne on 0408 093 307

💮Every Tuesday: Plant Propagation at Rocks Riverside Park, 17 Mile Rocks, 8:30am. Register

💮Last Sunday of the Month: Plant Sale, 8:30am-11:30am outside the Visitors Centre, Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens

💮Last Sunday of the Month: Explore with Friends, 9am, meet at the Visitors Centre, Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens

💮Wed 7 Oct 7:30am-9:30am: Kitchen Garden Volunteering, Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens. Contact Patty on 0499 097 084

For further details about all of these events, see our Events Calendar

From Julie

Welcome to you all in the lovely Spring weather in September – you may think it is summer but that is not quite right yet!

August was a very rewarding time with the Ekka being the biggest topic (unless you are interested in my visit to the dinosaurs in Winton for a week).  The ten days of the Ekka allowed FBBGSA to display “Gardens through the Ages” to the public and to stand beside the Brisbane Botanic Garden’s winning display.  It was particularly beneficial to us to be side by side so we could present a united front and direct questions to the Gardeners who looked after their display.

FBBGSA had three main objectives – to promote the public to attend the Botanic Gardens in the City and at Mt Coot-tha and talk about Sherwood Arboretum; to advise them of FBBGSA and our membership and events including the podcasts as a point of interest; and finally to enjoy themselves.  Our display had several items to bring the public into our display and to make it interactive (the only Gardens display that did this).  Firstly we had two beautiful trees painted by one of our members, Ros Laundon – thank you Ros.  One was for the children to add stickers to (interestingly that tree was covered with birds first before there were any leaves put on it) and to bring the parents into the display to start a discussion.  The other one was for adults to vote for the six trees which were displayed on our display.  A clear winner was the Jacaranda even though it is not a native and is considered a weed at present.  And we had our banner produced by Leticia, our member who runs the watercolour workshops – thank you Leticia.

We also were able to display a bunya nut (acquired from the Education Officers from Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens – thank you so much) together with several seeds/nuts that our First Nations people used as food.  The bunya nut, and following on from this the bunya tree, created a point of interest for the passing traffic.  The feedback from the volunteers who looked after the display over the ten days indicated the display had many areas to create interest for the public and then to direct them to our objectives.  I am very proud of the volunteers who nominated their time and energy to this cause.  Without them there is a range of items on the display that did not appear to connect to anything.

We are very pleased to advise, even though it is difficult to track except by individual stories, that our objectives were met.  Yes, there were many members of the public who came from outside of Brisbane who may visit the Botanic Gardens.  However I met a person who came to the display who has now joined FBBGSA and also came to a Plant Sale not long after.  Do you have any stories to tell?

FBBGSA are pleased for the offer from Prue McGrouther, Curator, to use mature trees for our display.  Other members sourced trees from nurseries, and finally a friend of mine offered a bonsai of a Moreton Bay Fig for the display – with many very positive comments on the quality of the bonsai. Thank you Terry.

As part of the Ekka planning, FBBGSA produced Tshirts and Teatowels with images of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens in the City and at Mt Coot-tha which the volunteers wore and the tea towels were displayed on the walls. FBBGSA offered these items to Botanic Gardens staff also (at cost price) and this was enthusiastically rewarded with many orders at both sites.  So if you are interested in a tea towel please send in your requests to secretary@fbbgsa.org.au – see below for the design.

With the start of warmer weather we do have many plants potted and ready to go.  If you want to view our plants contact Mary Jo via secretary @ fbbgsa.org.au for a viewing time.

Tonight Wednesday 9 September is FBBGSA’s AGM – come and hear the Curator, Prue McGrouther talk about her experiences.  Come and meet other members, as well as partake in a light supper.  5:30 – 8pm, at the Auditorium, Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens. See you there!!

Julie

Mt Coot-tha on TV: Gardening Australia

Gardening Australia recently visited the Tropical Dome at Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mount Coot-tha to film the Dome Deluxe story with Jerry Coleby-Williams. The story appeared on ABC TV last Friday 4th Sept, and again on Sunday 6th.
Recently appointed Curator Prue McGruther made a cameo appearance, but A/Team Leader Rhys was the real hero of the story, sharing his passion for subtropical and tropical plants.

If you missed it, you can watch the episode on ABC iView

Friends on the Air

Reading Radio is a special radio communications service for the blind and other people with reading difficulties. It began in Melbourne in 1975 and started broadcasting from Brisbane in 1978. Reading Radio is now broadcasting our Podcasts. Thanks to Helen for initially contacting Reading Radio.

Our Patron Dr Jeannette Young

As the term of the 27th Governor of Queensland, Her Excellency the Honourable Dr Jeannette Young AC PSM, draws to a close on 1 November 2026, the joint patronage Friends has enjoyed from Dr Young and Professor Graeme Nimmo RFD will come to a close. Patronage is not automatically extended, therefore Friends will be applying to our next Governor, the Honourable Justice Thomas Bradley, for his patronage.

Gardening on your balcony

Do you or family and friends have limited space for gardening? Perhaps you are sick of the possums eating your garden before you do. Balcony & Small Space Growing with Costa could be just what you need. You’ll be learning from Costa Georgiadis, Australia’s favourite gardening guru and Grow It Local‘s national patron Paul West, who’ll walk you through growing in small spaces step-by-step. By the end, you’ll know exactly how to turn a balcony, courtyard or tiny backyard into a productive food garden, picking the right containers, growing up when you can’t dig down, and harvesting fresh produce, even if you’ve never grown a thing in your life.
Your course is ready and waiting, no registration or login necessary, so jump in.

Learn from Grow It Local

Try this free mini workshop [YouTube, 54 minutes] on how to grow your own veggies from scraps and commonly bought supermarket items. This video is just a small taste from the huge library hosted by Grow It Local.

Or try The No-Dig Garden: A Quick Start Guide [55 minutes] and learn from Phil Dudman, one of Australia’s most respected horticulturalists, who’ll walk you through the no-dig method step-by-step to build better soil, banish weeds, and harvest incredible produce — all without the back-breaking yakka of traditional gardening.

By joining for just $8 a month, you’ll get access to the full library and seed service, where you are sent seeds every season, along with step-by-step videos as your seeds mature, right through to harvesting.

Help celebrate 50 years

Help celebrate 50 years of Brisbane Botanic Gardens Mt Coot-tha by sharing your memories. Whether you visited as a child, celebrated a wedding, enjoyed a family picnic, volunteered your time, explored a favourite walking trail or attended a memorable event, your experiences are part of the gardens’ history.
Your stories will help create a Then & Now exhibition celebrating not only the gardens’ rich history, but also the people who have enjoyed, supported and helped shape them over the past five decades. We’d love to hear your story. Submissions close on Monday 21 September 2026.

Generous donation

We were delighted to recently receive a very generous donation of $1,000 from non-member Wendy. Director Julie thanked Wendy and asked if she had any thoughts on the use of this money, but Wendy is happy to let us determine how to use it. Thank you Wendy!

Monday Nature Walks

Monday Nature Walks have been enjoyed recently in:
– Walter Zimmerman Park at Pine Mountain.
– Mount Coot-tha Forest
– Raven Street Reserve at Chermside
– and Toohey Forest

Toohey Forest is a favourite walking site and didn’t disappoint. Despite the forests and reserves we have visited lately starting to show the effects of dry weather, we have seen lots of pretty heath flowers and definite signs that Spring has sprung!

Daviesias are flowering, as well as Hoveas, Hardenbergias, Leptospermums, Boronias and Pultenaea, and many others. With each of these, we have usually had the challenge of identifying which one we are observing, between several different species.

At Raven Street Reserve, the Xanthorrhoea and Banksia tracks lived up to their names. We admired a hill of grass trees (Xanthorrhoea johnsonii), most looking unusually neat with dark ‘skirts’ and light green new growth, and many with new flowering spikes (thanks
to Ian for this word picture).

It is always interesting to observe the impact of different terrain on the types of plants we see in one park (or part of a park) compared to another. It becomes clear that the geology of the land dictates the plants that grow there. As well, tiny micro-climates, such as moist crevices
of rocks, support patches of ferns or lichens that don’t grow elsewhere. Monday Nature Walks are always an exercise of discovery!

We invite all FBBGSA members to join us!  No obligation – come on any of the walks that interest you.We walk each Monday morning, meeting at about 8.30 am and finishing each walk around 12 midday, with a coffee break and chat.  Car-sharing is available.

Want more information?  See the FBBGSA website.  Or contact Anne on 0408 093 307 or aelliott@powerup.com.au

Anne

Kitchen Garden

Spring has sprung in the Kitchen Garden with displays of Calendula , sweet peas (oh! that perfume), hollyhocks, cosmos, nasturtium , lavender, pansies and cornflowers among the silverbeet, bok choy, beetroot, kale, lettuce and chilli. The potted mulberry tree had a good fruit display and the new leaf growth and flowering on the citrus trees showed the result of care and attention. The brush turkeys had left evidence of their unwanted visits to the vegetable and strawberry gardens. October 7th will be the last volunteer working day for the year as we take a break over the hotter months, but we all agree we have had another enjoyable and learning experience in the Kitchen Garden.

Patty

Explore with Friends

See the Mt Coot-tha Gardens as you’ve never seen them before! You can join other members of the Friends exploring a part of the gardens for an hour or so on the last Sunday morning of every month. We spend our time in a concentrated area, really discovering and discussing what is growing there.

If you’re visiting the gardens soon and want to see some glorious colour and birdlife, you could reprise our August walk of part of the Australian Plant Communities section. We started at the top of the Bunya Forest Trail and worked our way through the Eremophilas and Grevilleas towards the Native Plants for Brisbane Gardens plantings.

We noticed that the large Spotted Gum has been relabelled with its new name Blakella citriodora. The Eremophilas have the perfect habitat under the gum and were flowering beautifully. Down the slope a bit, we loved the way the bright green foliage and little yellow star flowers of the bed of Bulbine bulbosa (Bulbine Lily or Native Lily) contrasted with the grey-green grass trees.

And then there were the Grevilleas! A range of colours and beautifully looked after, their abundant flowers were giving the Rainbow and Scaly-breasted lorikeets lots of joyous acrobatic fun. Our favourites included the golden Grevillea ‘Midas Touch’, the Northern Territory Grevillea wickhamii with its holly-shaped leaves and exquisite orange-red flowers, and Grevillea ‘Moonlight’, whose profuse creamy flowers sit so handsomely against its finely-divided dark green leaves – it’s no wonder it’s such a popular plant for home gardens.

Or you might like to try what we did in July, when we explored the Arid Region Plants section. The small hill and network of paths create lots of opportunity to admire the architectural beauty of these plants against the backdrop of the Tropical Dome. The Furcraea foetida ‘Mediopicta’, (Variegated Mauritius Hemp) makes a particularly bold statement.

We were amazed by the diversity of plants in the Euphorbiaceae family. The large show-stopping Euphorbia ingens tree from South Africa and Zimbabwe had flowers forming at the very top of its candelabra-like stems. Its red-purple fruits might still be on the tree. 

The curious Euphorbia lactea ‘Cristata’ sparked much conservation. This succulent is sometimes called Coral cactus, describing its wave-like fan shaped structure. It’s hard not to be entranced by the lolly-pink flowers of the Euphorbia millii hybrid (Crown of Thorns) from Madagascar. The flowers are just perfect and are a pretty contrast to the plant’s spiny stems. 

Sunday 27 September, 9.00 am – American Region Plants

Come explore the American region plants on the bank below the road, below the lookout. If we’re lucky, the Tabebuia/Handroanthus (Golden Trumpet tree) may be flowering.

• Meet Ian at 9.00 am at the Friends Plant Sale at the Visitor Information Centre
• Walk starts at 9.05 am sharp. If you’re late, you’re welcome to try to catch up with us.
• The walk will still go ahead if it’s raining.

Helen

Plant Propagating / Greenhouse

We have had busy couple of weeks with plant sales at Mt Coot-tha and the City Gardens, and the Alive in the Sunshine festival at Mt Coot-tha.
Now it’s full steam ahead as we look to warmer weather and optimum growing conditions in the greenhouse.

Sunday November 22nd at 11am is the Christmas break-up which will be held at the Greenhouse. It’s a chance to view our work at the greenhouse and buy some of our special plants as well as enjoying an hour or so by a beautiful stretch of the river. This event is open to members AND their friends. Morning tea will be supplied so please register at secretary@fbbgsa. org. au . Soooo bring friends , a chair and maybe a trolley to take your plants home!! From the car park it is a five minute walk to the greenhouse.
PS. We are always grateful for donations of 6 inch /150mm pots  and any small florist pots or smallish terracotta pots. Happy gardening.

Mary Jo

Coast to Coast UK: Yorkshire Dales (Instalment 2)

In Instalment 1 in August Lilygram, I outlined the first days of our Coast to Coast hike in the UK, from the west coast through the Lakes District.

On our sixth day, after exploring Shap Abbey (established in 1199), our pleasant but cold weather briefly stopped for a miniscule snowfall, then fined up again.
We entered the Westmorland Dales at Orton, home to “famous” Kennedy chocolates (yes, we indulged; it was, after all, Easter).
From Orton, we passed over many stiles, through gates and fields, seeing abundant lambs and occasional flowers, hills and rural vistas. Medieval market town, Kirkby Stephen, was our next stopover.

After leaving delightful Kirkby Stephen, we saw a lot of gorse and the first of many grouse and pheasants on the moors, after ascending Hartley Hill on a path of repurposed ancient gravestones to the majestic Nine Standards,a mysterious group of massive, ancient dry-stone cairns. Many hills and descents later, we reached tiny Keld (population 30), the highest village in Swaledale, possibly settled in 9th/10th CE and once an important lead mining village. Half-way on the Coast to Coast trail!

From Keld we followed the River Swale: first forest, waterfalls and a gorge, then wide farmland. We began to see more wildflowers, especially riverside. On our way to our overnight stop in the busy town of Reeth, we crossed fields and navigated stiles, some very slim. Our Pathfinder App actually said “larger people may not appreciate the many narrow stiles”.

On day ten, we walked through many forests and fields via the pretty village of Marske towards Richmond, where we were to have a rest day. Again, flowers along the river and through the woods, and we began to see flowering Blackthorn hedges. (We learnt that Blackthorn flowers before the leaves appear, and Hawthorn blooms afterwards; we were to see both hedges). Coming into Richmond, we saw ash trees threatened with die-back. We also passed beneath Whitcliffe scar, where Robert Willance’s horse plunged from the cliff. We stayed in Willance House.

Richmond: We had an opportunity to fully explore the market town, located at the point where Swaledale, the upper valley of the River Swale, opens into the Vale of Mowbray. Firstly: the cemetery near our accommodation – the final resting place of Alderman Willance, where he was reunited in 1616 with his amputated leg which was removed after his riding accident whilst hunting in 1606. We saw several grey squirrels scampering amongst the gravestones. The town also boasts a wonderfully repurposed railway station (cafe, art gallery, heritage centre, shops, cinemas) and Castle: the best-preserved early Norman fortress in England, built in 1071 by Alan Rufus, a companion of William the Conqueror. An interesting tour of the Georgian Theatre Royal rounded off our “rest” day.

In Instalment 3, our adventure continues over the Moors, with some of the most challenging sections of the Coast to Coast trail.

Rob

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