Jade Smith

2024 | Horticulture

“I am specifically interested in environmental sustainability with regards to water, plants, energy and lowering carbon emissions. I value education, whether that be learning for myself, or passing on my knowledge to anyone interested.”

I recently completed Certificate III in Horticulture via a traineeship with Kings Park of Botanic Gardens. During this time, I have developed a love for Australia’s beautiful native flora whilst learning evolutionary techniques required to keep these plants alive with minimal water in our dry climates.

I am specifically interested in environmental sustainability with regards to water, plants, energy and lowering carbon emissions. I value education, whether that be learning for myself, or passing on my knowledge to anyone interested.

I value our Australian environment so much. Every plant that grows within the dry climate has its very own special role in the habitat in which it lives. The many roles include providing food or shelter to local fauna. The plants bind soil with its roots to prevent soil erosion, shield smaller plants from heavy winds, or even offering shade for fauna or other flora to survive the harsh arid conditions.

As an Indigenous Australian, I am extremely passionate about passing on my knowledge of culture to my peers and younger generation. My ancestors have always looked after country and lived sustainably and respectfully alongside its fauna and flora. Never taking too much, each family member has their own roles and responsibilities required to protect the environment and teach the generation following in their footsteps.

I am hoping to expand my knowledge of flora and fauna within a climate and environment that is completely different to Australia. After travelling, I would love to share my learnings with my team at Kings Park Botanic Gardens. I intend to use these skills to find better ways to re-vegetate waste lands stripped by mining, or researching plants that can tolerate soil-borne diseases such as dieback (Phytophthora cinnamomi), so the ecology is not at risk.

A Global Footprints Scholarship is your opportunity to do more of what you love. What have you done at work that you are proud of or passionate about?

As a trainee of Kings Park Botanic Gardens we have many opportunities to work in different roles across the park. I have spent time working in horticultural display gardens, Kings Park nursery, bushland care, tech hort (science, collecting and storing seeds), arboriculture and plant development (science, breeding plants, and collecting and storing tissue culture).

Learning about different plants has been a specialty of mine. One that has captured my imagination is Podocarpus elatus (Illawarra plum), a beautiful tree that produces blueberry like fruit, but in order for this tree to fruit, it requires both a male and a female tree (dioecious). Another amazing fact: some species that live in the desert regions often show a powdery white coat over their leaves and stems. This acts as a type of sunscreen, protecting the plant from harsh UV rays which can damage plant tissue. Then there are some species which have flowers facing downwards (Darwinia meeboldii, Cranbrook Bell). They are an adaptation that allows for small critters like mammals to crawl into the flower, and feast on pollen/nectar. Flowers facing upwards attract other pollinators like birds or insects.

A Global Footprints Scholarship is for you if you are passionate about creating a sustainable future. Describe something you have done at work or are working on, that helps the environment. Why is it important to you?

Last year I had the opportunity to volunteer at an educational booth set up at King Park Botanic Gardens in conjunction with Water Corporation. During this week I was able to answer any plant or gardening related questions from the public and provided suggestions on how they could turn their garden into a water wise garden to save water.

When driving through to different towns in Perth, you usually see a lot of houses that either have mainly lawns, European gardens or both that require a lot of water (since the plants need a lot of water intake to stay luscious and green). The team as Kings Park try to encourage and inspire communities to plant and grow native flora which is sustainable but is also very aesthetically pleasing. Many of our flora have evolved with out harsh dry climates to uptake less water, and even less nutrients (due to our sandy soils being poor of nutrients).

I have also had the opportunity to teach young peers from Busselton Senior Highschool whilst attending their career expo. During this time, we completed waterwise garden workshops with the students, explained how Australian natives have adapted to harsh climates and at the end of the expo created a nice waterwise garden at the front of their high school.

I find that teaching and inspiring the public about the benefits of a waterwise garden is so important as we are not always going to have water forever. We need to recycle our grey water, capture as much as we can in rainwater tanks and continue educating people of sustainable water use.

Everyday across the globe, people make breakthroughs for a more sustainable future. What have you seen or heard about that you find inspiring, and why?

I read a lot of non-fictional books on horticultural, botanical, botany, biology, and ecology books, and have many green thumbed co-workers always recommending books, shows or podcasts that relate to the subjects and I find them all quite exciting and inspiring. It is difficult to find anything specific, especially as I am the type of individual who is always curious and asking questions about anything and everything.

I admire the Kings Park nursery practice, where you can see new species being grown from cuttings which we often then clone subsequently keeping the genetics ongoing. I have also enjoyed planting seeds and determining which pre-treatment is required to get the seed germinating such as soaking in boiling water, smoke water, scarification, or acidification.

As a BBM Scholar you can choose to go anywhere in the world. Where do you hope to travel with your Scholarship and why?

I hope to travel to ‘The Eden Project ’in the United Kingdom as it has a completely different environment to Australia but also hosts some Australian natives for tourists to admire.

The Eden Project is an amazing place, being a huge dome with many international plants including our natives. Their focus is reconnecting people to nature, communication and demonstrating positive change to the environment and are very big on sustainability, thus their aim is to reduce carbon emissions by 7% each year. I would love to spend my time there learning not only how everything works and cycles together but on how they use sustainability that co-sides with our fauna.

I would love to experience this dream and maybe in hope not only to use this new knowledge and skills forward into the future but in hope to do further study in more horticultural, botany and environmental scientific practices to make a better sustainable practice in then future.

"Jade is passionate and continuously seeking knowledge." - Assessors