Clarence Slockee has plenty of fans and followers locally and the northern suburbs are part of his stomping ground.
The Gardening Australia presenter loves nothing more than to walk the coast from Stanwell Park or along the Wodi Wodi track with his family. He recently featured a regenerated rainforest garden in Coledale on the ABC show, which first introduced him to audiences 10 years ago.
Clarence is a Cudgenburra/Bundjalung man who grew up in a farming family around the Tweed Valley. His parents and brother still grow limes and small crops on the family farm and his sister continues the tradition on her organic property nearby. Clarence moved to the Illawarra from his previous home in Maroubra 15 years ago, in search of more land at affordable prices.
After years performing with NAISDA, the dance college that reconnected him to his First Nations culture, Clarence was in his 30s when he decided that the plant world offered more secure employment prospects. He’s kept music as a hobby but when a position at the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney came up, he jumped careers, before eventually starting his own business, Jiwah, which means Goanna in Bundjalung.
Its motto, “Native by Design, Nature by Necessity”, expresses Clarence’s commitment to encouraging clients to incorporate native and endemic species into public spaces and gardens large and small to encourage biodiversity.
Filming and the landscaping consultancy mean he is often away from home, so his own garden is a work in progress. “The front garden is a bit ‘how ya goin’ but it’s screened with lilly pillies so people can’t really see it,” he laughs.
But it survived the heavy recent downpours: raised beds minimised the loss of topsoil and a filtration rain garden encouraged drainage and directed water flow. He’s planted wallaby grass, correas, melaleucas and billy buttons, favouring a natural look.
“People want their gardens to be manicured, which is all about control, but nature is not like that. I even heard of someone who planted a male plum pine so they wouldn’t be inconvenienced by the fruit dropping on their car,” he says, rolling his eyes. He’s not a big fan of too much lawn either.
Clarence is full of praise for Wollongong Botanic Garden and encouraged to see how popular its sales of native plants have become. “They cannot keep up with demand, which is great, so you have to get there early.”
The recent drenching rains were a boon for his work rescuing mature native plants such as Gymea lilies and temperamental Xanthorrhoeas to transfer them to new sites – a complex undertaking of logistics requiring leadership and co-ordinated team work. He is the first to admit that management and admin are not his favourite parts of running a small business, but it’s a testimony to his grit that Covid and its aftermath of staffing havoc have not stopped him in his tracks.
“It’s hard to find young people who want to do the work when they think they can just sit around and be influencers,” he says, laughing at how grumpy that sounds.
Jiwah’s large-scale projects include a planting at Sydney University’s Faculty of Medicine, a new(ish) rooftop garden at Barangaroo visible from surrounding buildings and an edible rooftop garden at South Eveleigh, from which his friend Kylie Kwong sources several native plants for her nearby canteen-style kitchen, Lucky Kwong.
One positive outcome of Covid is that Clarence believes it has encouraged more people to garden, perhaps because of spending more time at home, looking out at their yard or needing to turn an outdoor area into a more productive and versatile space.
“I’d love to see people planting more native grasses,” he says. “They are really under-utilised, because people don’t realise how many species there are. So many of our bird and insect species really need those seeds.”
Clarence Slockee will be speaking at Connecting Over Fair Food 2022 at UOW’s Innovation Campus, 6-9pm on 18 October, tickets $10, visit foodfairnessillawarra.org.au
Gardening Australia is on the ABC on Fridays at 7.30pm.