Our calendar for 2023 is:

In 2022 our group’s monthly gatherings were held at a range of localities and at different times of the day and on different days of the week.  In 2023 we plan to continue holding some events outdoors and others indoors (mostly evenings).

• Wednesday 1st February 10 am, Visit University of Sydney to explore the extensive use of native plantings; and later visit the Chau Chak Wing Museum. Meet at Charles Kernan Reserve, on the corner of Abercrombie & Shepherd Sts, Redfern.
• Sat 11 Mar 2023, piggy back onto APS NSW Gathering at Bundeena Community Hall, hosted by Sutherland group.  
• Wed 5^th April evening, indoor meeting at Club Burwood RSL, 96 Shaftesbury Road, Burwood, in the Executive room. This is a Members night – short talks by various members about their particular passions concerning native plants. A chance for new members to introduce themselves & get to know long standing members
• Sun 7^th May, from 10 am. Visit Sydney Park – coffee shop, community gardens, wetland, 2 hr walk. Meet at the brickworks, opposite St Peters Station. There are also buses along Princes Highway. Details to be confirmed.
• Wednesday 7^th June - indoors evening meeting at Burwood RSL Club, 96 Shaftesbury Rd, Burwood.  Dinner from 6pm - then from 7.30pm "Something Completely Different" - Member Travels, including highlights from a trip to Bhutan.  
• Sunday 9 July - Tour of the GreenWay with IWEG (Inner West Environment Group).  Meet on the Arlington light rail platform (east side) at 10 am.  There will also be a coffee stop at Lewisham West.  Background notes from last year are attached.  More information about the Greenway. 
• Saturday 12 August to Sunday 17 September - Muogamarra Nature Reserve is open only 6 weeks pa

• Sunday 13 August 9:30 am start – ‘PUB’ Crawl with Bankstown Bushland Society

  BBS care for 21 sites in parks, patches & reserves in the Bankstown area.  We are visiting 3 or 4 of these planting & bush care projects.

• Wed 6 Sept - Australian Botanic Gardens, Mt Annan - including Herbarium 

This will feature a tour of the herbarium, which will take an hour. We will visit the quarantine areas and see how staff operate within the herbarium. We will also visit the incredible vaults and check the collection of herbarium specimens collected by Banks and Solander. The Herbarium part of the tour will be limited to 15 people – first in, best dressed. We will then take a self-guided tour of the gardens which others are welcome to join.

Meet 10:15am at National Herbarium of NSW, off Cunningham Drive, Mt Annan.  

Please RSVP to Liz on elsmere02@gmail.com as numbers are limited.

VISITORS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME

• Sun September 10 - Northern Beaches group invites us to the Stony Range Flora Reserve Festival
• Saturday 16 September - APS NSW September Gathering, hosted by Illawarra Group. Meet at 1pm at Corrimal Community Hall. More information & registration here.
• Sunday 17 September - Sylvan Grove Native Garden tour

7 Sylvan Grove, Picnic Point.  Facebook Limited parking adjacent to the Garden. 

11 am guided tour of the Garden with Canterbury Bankstown Council horticulturist, Jim Mackay.

You may like to arrive earlier and have morning tea before we start.  Picnic table and toilet onsite.

Coffee etc available from The Shop at Picnic Point, 2 Doris Street, Picnic Point, open Sundays from 7.30 – 11.30 am.

For those who cannot join us (the APS NSW gathering in Wollongong is the previous day), we strongly recommend a visit on another occasion; it really is an underappreciated gem which contains over 1,500 native plants from all over Australia.  The garden is only 1.5 ha in area but the winding paths lead through a range of leafy plant communities and the impression is of a much larger space.

Open on weekdays all year from 7:00am-3:00pm and on weekends from mid-August to end of November 2023 from 9:00am-4:30pm.  Admission is free.

• Wednesday 4 October, evening, indoor meeting – Garden Design workshop with James Middleton  - who is one of our members and a landscape designer
• 13 - 15 October - Orchid Show & Sale, Club Condell Park, 178 Eldridge Road, Bankstown
• 19 October - WCPS Annual Dinner, with Peter Ridgeway, naturalist and author of “A Wide and Open Land” about walking the Cumberland Plain
• Saturday 21 October - NCC Picnic for Nature – any volunteers to organise one?
• Wednesday 15 November - HGR Outing to Royal Botanic Gardens. Note this is a change of plans. Details TBC
• November - South Eveleigh Native Rooftop Farm that Clarence Slockee’s Jiwah company has developed; it is apparently not open to the public, but we may be able to organise a group tour.  Maybe followed by lunch at Lucky Kwong in Eveleigh (owned by Kylie Kwong).
• Wednesday 13 December at 6pm – Christmas Party and AGM – Clemton Park Uniting Church Hall, 6 Dunkirk Ave, Kingsgrove (corner Miller St).   We will hold our Annual General Meeting & planning for next year during the event, so come along to have your say about next year’s activities.              Please rsvp to Liz on elsmere02@gmail.com