TRANSCRIPT
Clearing weeds and winter pruning is underway at a cultural garden in inner Sydney. South Eveleigh is a business precinct with a flower garden at its heart. And caring for the plants is a focus for local First Nations businessman, Roman Deguchi.
“It's a place that people can come to and feel like they're going into country and sort of stepping into the bush a little bit. Our native plants are underappreciated and undervalued. We really take a lot of pride in bringing young people into the garden and showing them the uses and how special some of these plants are.”
The garden may be small but its biodiversity is complex – with tall eucalyptus soaring above a dense understory filled with native grasses and ground covers.
“At least 90% of the plants here are endemic species. We've got lots of different things. A lot of bush foods, a lot of nitrogen sort of fixers a lot of established trees that were here originally. Like the lemon scented gums, a few different species of wattles. So, acacias, Gymea lilies.”
Several towering Gymea lily stems, about to burst into red flowers, inspire Mr Deguchi to share Aboriginal knowledge handed down the generations.
“Gymea Lily, an iconic local plant - one of my favourites. But one of the things that I always think about when it's flowering, it's whale season and you know whales are migrating. So, nearly every plant or every plant there's a story to be told.”
Mr Deguchi is local to the Redfern area and says working in the garden and learning more about native plants has helped him reconnect with his culture.
“I've come from stolen generations. So, my grandfather was taken as a baby. He grew up as a Fijian man, found out later in life that he was Aboriginal. My dad passed away when I was a young person and that was a real sort of, I guess rude shock for me. I actually fell into landscaping and horticulture just indirectly through a local council. And it really took my interest and it really sparked my passion. It was a real turning point for me, again too because not knowing a lot about my identity and culture, I really think as a young man took to the plants, took the native animals took to the country, being somewhat connected to it through that, helped me feel and understand myself.”
Mr Deguchi turned his passion into a business, starting Wildflower Gardens for Good 3 years ago with a close friend. And it has since secured various commercial contracts.
“We've got a big project with Sydney University that's going to be coming up that's going to be a really exciting one. We've got more work coming up with Sydney Airport, that’s a really important partnership with, we've got some work coming up with Woolworths.”
Planting wildflowers is a growing trend across Australia. Farmers are turning degraded land into wildflower meadows and some industrial sites are being rehabilitated with native plants.
Professor Nick Williams, Urban Ecologist from the University of Melbourne explains.
“Wildflower meadows are commonly used horticulturally in the United Kingdom and Europe whereby they're put in for their great floral displays and also to increase the number of pollinators in urban areas, it’s quite a common thing. But they tend to use a whole mix of species from all around the world, not just native species. But they can become quite weedy in an Australian context. So we want to use native species to benefit our native bio diversity. What I mean by that - is the bees and butterflies and birds. The number and diversity of those species will increase if we increase the number of plant species. There's lots of benefits of using native species in urban landscapes. One: they can really increase our connection to country and so familiarize people with the native flora and get them understanding the species that used to occur in our cities and hopefully the species we can bring back into our cities. But there's also an increasing body of research which shows that exposure to nature in this regard can really be restorative to people's mental health benefits and help them cope with the pressures of urbanisation. And, also, when people care for their local environment, they're more likely to have concern for the national or global conservation concerns. And so being able to experience local nature will also help people think about those bigger global conservation questions.”
Mr Deguchi’s wildflower business is growing.
He has so far hired 20 young Aboriginal workers, among them 19-year-old ‘TJ’ Speedy Coe.
“Being able to put native plants back into the gardens where I am from – yeah it’s no better feeling! Makes me feel more proud because I am Aboriginal myself. Being from Redfern and Waterloo being able to work in the areas where I grew up, to come here and have a job, full-time job, it's something special for not just me, but a lot of boys and girls around the community as well.”
Mr Deguchi couldn’t be more pleased to have offered TJ his first job and to have him on the team.
“He's only 19 years old, but he's got the maturity of a 35-year-old sometimes. So, I think just being able to harness that and encourage that, I think is great. He's full of life, he's full of charisma. So yeah, having people like him leading the way for us is where it's at.
For many young workers, a fulltime job in a culturally safe environment helps build skills and confidence.
Tom Edwards is 21 and proud to be learning on the job.
“School wasn't really for me. I was left at the early age at school and I was in and out of jobs. This is the longest job I've held. Been here for about two, two-and-a-half years. Eventually down the track, Hopefully start my own business and get young kids from the area too, around, into more jobs.”
For Mr Deguchi success means giving back to the extended local family that helped raise him as a teenager.
“I'm doing my bit. I feel like in a lot of ways I feel indebted to the community because when I was a young man, there was a community that really brought me in. For us in these suburbs, Redfern, Waterloo areas, there's just a lot of barriers when it comes to joining the workforce. And I think for too long our people have been sort of left out of that economic conversation. So we really want to be able to change that. And a lot of that comes with financial freedom for our young people. It's about having the finances, money in your pocket to be able to travel, buy a car, things that a lot of people take for granted.”
As well as supporting a new generation and caring for the land, Mr Deguchi says wildflower gardens help to build respect for Australia’s native bushland and its bounty.
“When you think about Reconciliation Week, it is pride for us, a place that reconciliation can happen. It’s a place when the wider mainstream Australia start recognizing the beauty and the knowledge that exists in aboriginal culture and history. We all know that everywhere in Australia there's disadvantaged communities. So, we really love to be able to see this is a model that we've created that can be translated across Australia.”
