Hornsby Shire Council is bringing back its Native Plant Giveaways this August, and for the first time it’s the northern suburbs’ turn to fill the boot of the car with grasses, shrubs and young trees grown just down the road at the Shire’s own nursery. It’s a simple exchange on paper — turn up, pick some plants, take them home — but for the gardeners who’ve made this a fixture of their year, it’s become something closer to a ritual, a chance to plant a small piece of bushland back into their own backyards.
The event has quietly grown over two decades since 2003, and in that time it’s handed tens of thousands of native plants to households across the Shire. Ask around any of the local gardening groups and you’ll find someone whose front yard, or back fence line, or nature strip owes its shape to a Saturday spent at the nursery.
This year’s northern suburbs event runs across Friday 28 and Saturday 29 August at Warada Ngurang Community Nursery in Pennant Hills, and it follows on from a well-attended southern suburbs giveaway back in March. Residents from Arcadia, Asquith, Berrilee, Berowra, Berowra Heights, Berowra Waters, Brooklyn, Canoelands, Cowan, Dangar Island, Fiddletown, Forest Glen, Glenorie, Hornsby, Hornsby Heights, Laughtondale, Maroota, Milsons Passage, Mt Colah, Mt Kuring-gai, Singletons Mill and Wisemans Ferry will have first access to this round.
Wandering the nursery on giveaway days, visitors can expect long tables of grasses, groundcovers, climbers, shrubs and trees in every size, most of them grown from seed by the nursery’s own volunteers. That local, hands-on growing process is part of what makes the giveaway feel different from a trip to a regular garden centre — these are plants suited to Hornsby Shire’s own soil and climate, not generic stock bred for anywhere and everywhere.
Council staff and volunteers move through the crowd offering suggestions, and posters dotted around the nursery spell out the growing conditions, eventual size and standout features of each species, so even first-time native gardeners can walk away with a plan rather than a guess.
Mayor Warren Waddell has spoken about the program’s role in protecting the Shire’s bushland corridors and the native animals that depend on them, framing each backyard planting as a small but real contribution to the broader ecosystem. He’s also pointed out that the nursery’s experts are there precisely so residents can avoid picking a plant that looks lovely today but turns into a headache — or a weed — a few years on.
Bookings for the August giveaway open at 9 am on Friday 31 July, and given how quickly past events have filled, northern suburbs residents keen to secure a spot would do well to have that date circled. The nursery is located at 28 Britannia Street, Pennant Hills, and full details are available at hornsby.nsw.gov.au/npg.