When the Journey Climaxes with a Visit to Lamington Native Nursery

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“Wind the windows down, turn off the music and enjoy the drive.”

This is Dave’s advice for anyone visiting this picturesque nursery that he runs with his partner Shionagh. The road gets lots of passing traffic on the weekends, as holiday makers and day trippers make their way up the winding road to the Lamington Plateau, home of O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat. This passing traffic doesn’t always stop in on the way up or down, but it’s their loss if they don’t!

The drive itself, is both breathtaking and heart stopping, with views across the valleys of the Scenic Rim and narrow one-way sections with cliffs on one side and a staggering drop on the other. If you keep your eyes on the scenery (far easier as a passenger rather than a driver) you will be treated to not just the views but also impressive grass trees and glimpses of wildlife like the Pretty-faced Wallabies that are the totem for the local Indigenous people. This is Wangerriburra Country.

Tucked in on terraces is a charming little spot with amazing views across the Lost World Valley of the Scenic Rim. Beside the road one is greeted by the couple’s favourite product, Native Raspberries.

I have one of these plants, bought from the nursery, in a large pot in my garden. My children love it! When it’s fruiting, it is visited several times a day by youngsters hungry for the juicy delights. It fruits a lot and I am planning on letting it fill the pot before finding another bigger pot to confine its vigorous growth.

Descending the stairs to the next terrace reveals covered reused pallets of lush, green, (mostly) native plants and a small shipping container fitted out as a shop with a good selection of gifts from pottery made on site to jewellery, garden art, candles and more.

An ingenious design for a difficult location

The terraces are there for good reason and it’s not just that the slopes are prohibitively steep. They are designed to slow water flow and prevent erosion. Within two years of the couple moving to the property, the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Debbie dumped 414mm of rain on the Plateau above in just 24 hours¹.

Record major flooding during the event was not confined to the rivers. Water rushed down steep slopes in the mountainous areas, causing massive landslides and washing away many roads. The road to Lamington Native Nursery was one of those roads, but even before this, Dave and Shionagh knew that water management was going to be key to building a life in the rough but beautiful terrain.

The damage to the road provided many more opportunities for the couple to gain knowledge and implement solutions. For more than two years they observed the road crews. As the roadworkers went through the process of reparation prioritising the road infrastructure, Dave and Shionagh observed the impact on the natural world. They developed strategies based on those observations to improve on the way the infrastructure connected with the environment around it.

Along the roadside, they have put in berms, raised barriers made of compacted mulch. These berms not only slow the water and prevent erosion, they also absorb the water storing it for long after the rain has stopped. I saw the evidence of this myself when we walked along the road and looked at the areas with berms and without. The erosion was clearly more recent and much worse in the sections without berms.

Once the water has been impeded during its rushing journey down the bitumen road, it slowly dribbles through the gaps and seeps through the mulch to flood on to each terrace which features a depression in the centre. Once again, the water pools and in so doing, it slows and is denied from carrying too much loose soil down the slopes. It also stays to more deeply penetrate the earth, nurturing the volcanic soil and the life that grows within and from it.

The land clearly benefits from their intervention as they benefit from passive design elements built in from previous owners. Shionagh explains that the wonderful golden blooming Leichhardt Bean (Cassia brewsteri) that has featured recently in the Lamington Native Nursery social media feeds, is deciduous. This is unusual for Australian natives, but perfect for the location of their house where the Westerly side is protected from the heat in Summer, but open to the sun in Winter when these trees lose their leaves as the weather cools.

I was in awe of the way that they have worked with the country and organisms that make up their home on the mountainside, including erosion prevention through planting species of plants like Lomandras. Many other examples we touched on in our conversation can’t be discussed here, but perhaps that’s a story for another day.

Beginning with propagation and dirt from roadworks

When the couple moved to the property they had already developed plans for a more sustainable lifestyle. They knew they wanted to restrict their impact on the environment by being off-grid, using their vehicles less and working from home more. They also wanted to get stuck into removing invasive plants, such as the ever-present Lantana, and replace them with natives that would hold the soil and contribute to the ecosystem.

Dave and Shionagh started propagating plants and saw a natural progression of their goals to be selling some of these natives. The biggest barrier was how to start this business on a steep slope. This barrier was overcome thanks to road repairs necessitated by the rains brought to the mountain by Cyclone Debbie. They organised for road crews to dump the soil they removed as clean fill and started constructing terraces.

With the purchase of a small shipping container, they were able to not only create a secure base for the business, but also collect more water by utilising its roof. Every aspect of the design promotes and interacts to contribute to their goals for self-sufficiency and water conservation and collection was a running theme in the discussion.

Products

Lamington Native Nursery stocks a range of plants that vary according to what’s being propagated in their nursery at home. From rainforest trees to vines to exotic food plants, the health of these plants is unparalleled in my experience of buying from nurseries. They have a number of bush tucker plants that are difficult to source elsewhere as well as rarely cultivated natives like the beautiful Scrambling Lily (Geitonoplesium cymosum).

As an added bonus, Shionagh is a creative and skilled potter. Her lovely designs are produced entirely on-site and available for purchase from the nursery or various markets in the Scenic Rim region.

The final touch to this small but vibrant business is a range of gift items from jewellery to candles and more. With electronic payment available on-site there’s every reason to support this business and its goals for sustainability.

Moment of Wonder

Shionagh and Dave have experienced no shortage of moments of wonder in their slice of paradise. From viewing the footage of their night camera focusing on their gabion water baths during the drought, to experiencing the more brutal aspects of nature, they make an effort not to anthropomorphise and judge through human ideals. This allows them to view predator and prey, like the Green Tree Snake that had an hour-long battle with a Green Tree Frog, or the merciless mating habits of Pretty-faced Wallabies, and still find the wonder in the experience. In Shionagh’s words,

“This is what nature is.”

Of course, there are still those more idyllic moments, like the crowds of birds they witness at every stage of development and the sounds of Koalas calling for mates. They also regularly experience encounters on their veranda like this one which happened after they had harvested homegrown Sunflower Seeds and left them in a basket:

“We came out at night, just came out and sat down at the table. We heard this, right next to me on the chair, heard this sort of rustling. It was a Sugar Glider sitting in the basket where these [sunflower seeds] are and he’s sitting there just eating away and he’s got the torch on him and he’s just sitting there eating away. He went through all the seeds and then ended up getting up and making his way to the railing and then off to the trees. So that was pretty good.”

Every morning when they get up they are greeted by Kookaburras and King Parrots among other species and during the day their remote location and nurturing of the environment lands countless experiences of nature in their paths.

What advice would they give to themselves?

Humility is evident in the couple’s responses to the question of what advice they would give to themselves if they could go back in time. Dave admits that they have made many mistakes, but rather than regret those mistakes, he feels they’ve gained priceless knowledge through observing the consequences of their own actions. These observations have informed their progress.

When they first moved to the property, they cleared an area of weeds only to have much of the soil wash away in the next rain. This “mistake” has now led to their practice of planting around the weeds and only removing them when the new plants are established and holding the soil themselves.

Ultimately, they feel that they would advise themselves to reverse their development plans and establish Eco-cabins before the nursery to establish income to fuel their self-sufficiency and off-grid lifestyle.

Imagine waking up in an Eco-cabin surrounded by this enchanting habitat and looking over the Lost World Valley in the Scenic Rim. Photo by Author

The future is sharing the delights of this location with many others

Shionagh and Dave’s eyes light up as they talk about plans for the Eco-cabins that they hope will nestle in the slopes and allow others to enjoy, albeit for short stays, their off-grid lifestyle and access to nature.

“They’ll be real Eco-cabins, not just called Eco-cabins,” says Dave emphatically before explaining that they will be entirely off-grid and unplugged from the cares of traffic, television and internet.

“They’ll also be beautiful!” says Shionagh with enthusiasm that is contagious.

Final thoughts

As I travelled down the narrow winding road on the way home, I took Dave’s advice and wound the windows down, taking my time and breathing in the serenity. It’s truly a beautiful location and he’s right! The journey to the nursery is as lovely as the nursery itself and well worth the time.

I, for one, will be watching the feeds of my social media for news of the amazing-sounding cabins, just like I already watch for new plant species. This time, I left the nursery full of hope for the future (and with two new plants and a lovely necklace for my daughter’s birthday) and drunk with the wonder of breathing the fresh air that permeates the mountains of the Scenic Rim.

Links

You can find Lamington Native Nursery on Facebook and Instagram and by clicking their website link below:

https://www.lamingtonnativenursery.com.au

This interview was originally published on Medium as a part of the "Heroes of Mother Nature" series.