Nearing the mid-point of the University of Wollongong’s 50th anniversary celebrations, and to celebrate the campus’s unique landscape environment, plans have been unveiled to create a special walk to highlight the special beauty of the area.

It’s been many months in the making, and experts on and off campus have painstakingly narrowed down a long list of what are considered the most significant tree species for inclusion in a new UOW Campus Tree Walk, which, fittingly in this 50th year for UOW, will include 50 trees.

The Illawarra Flame reported previously how, in 1975, UOW’s first landscape manager Leon Fuller and his team set about greening the then barren campus with thousands of native trees. Their legacy lives on today and benefits everyone who sets foot on campus. A major audit and safety assessment of trees has created a database of in excess of 10,000 individual trees.

'Best of' the UOW landscape

Dr Alison Haynes, the director of UOW’s Janet Cosh Herbarium (JCH), said a group of local botanists, together with experts on campus, decided the golden anniversary of the university provided an ideal opportunity to create a walk linking the ‘best of’ the treescape on the central campus. 

“It’s been an incredible team effort,” said Alison, pointing out that the UOW team included Mark Haining, landscape supervisor; Alison Scobie, environment officer; and Anthony Wardle, horticulture and fauna officer. “We’ve needed every single person in the team to be on board,” she said. Local botanists Leon Fuller, Gary Leonard and Growing Illawarra Natives coordinator Emma Rooksby also provided invaluable expertise.

Alison said many years ago two previous walks were developed to highlight the rainforest and eucalypt species but many of those specimens and the signage were now showing signs of age and decay. Some had eroded, or become unsafe, or other trees had “grown up bigger and better”.

“We felt those previous walks had served their purpose but were now out of date and needed updating,” Alison said. “The 50th anniversary provides the opportunity to revamp and broaden the tree walk.”

Curator at the JCH, Patsy Nagle, is credited with bringing together a team with the right expertise to set about identifying which trees deserved to be among the top 50. That task has just been completed after the selection panel reached a consensus, basing their deliberations on a number of criteria.

Lots of debates in the selection process

“We’ve had so many debates about which tree species we should include. In the end we selected specific, significant trees in the right locations and in the best possible health,” Patsy said.

The walk will also document the importance of these trees as a habitat for native fauna, something which also became an important consideration for the final tree selection.

The process included consultation with Associate Professor Dr Anthony McKnight at UOW’s Woolyungah Indigenous Centre to factor in connection to Country, bush tucker, Dharawal language, cultural uses, ecology and ceremony into the interpretive material.

“We want to keep Country at the centre of the interpretive focus with wording to encourage people to stop and dwell, and take the time to look, listen and see the connection to Country,” Patsy said.

With the all-important tree selection process now complete, work is underway on preparing signage, which will include a QR code linking to a Campus Tree Walk website that will contain a wealth of information, including links to ‘friends’ of UOW such as the Growing Illawarra Natives network and other local environmental initiatives.

Valuable education resource

“We see this as a valuable new educational resource for students and a showcase of our on-campus ecology. It will also be a promotion of the important work undertaken by the Janet Cosh Herbarium,” Alison said.

New tree plantings are expected to be incorporated into the launch of the Campus Tree Walk, more than just symbolic, but ensuring the landscape legacy created half a century ago lives on for the next 50 years.

UOW’s reputation as a wonderfully leafy campus, where the mature trees make it a joy to be a part of, stretches far and wide.

“A lot of international students choose this campus because it is so green and beautiful,” Patsy said. Alison said the Janet Cosh Herbarium will do everything it can to ensure UOW’s next 50 years continue to preserve, nurture, celebrate and promote local plant and tree life.

The aim is to have the Campus Tree Walk officially launched in spring, with special guided walks planned. For those wanting to take a self-guided stroll connecting the 50 special trees, this could take anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours, depending on how long you linger.