User Profile

Emma Rooksby

Emma Rooksby is a local volunteer bush regenerator and environmental educator who helped establish the Growing Illawarra Natives website. She is passionate about protecting and restoring local biodiversity in the Illawarra region and collaborates with many groups and individuals who share that passion.

Science & Nature

Plant water-loving Illawarra natives to create habitat and help stop erosion

Back to the plants this week! As we are going with the riparian flow for a while, I thought I’d feature a few of Illawarra’s most water-loving plants. There are dozens of local water plants, living anywhere from periodically inundated creek lines to...

Emma Rooksby

July 2025

Science & Nature

What actually is a waterway?

Since my last couple of posts, I’ve had all sorts of interesting conversations about waterways. First Nations Peoples caring for the Country to which they belong; people who live on or own (in the conventional legal system) a stretch of waterway...

Emma Rooksby

July 2025

Science & Nature

Illawarra waterways – a spot of history

Having grandly announced a new series of articles on Illawarra waterways, I was promptly struck with an intense case of writer’s block. Or, to be honest, it was more like writer’s log-jam, with dozens of thoughts crowding in together and butting up...

Emma Rooksby

July 2025

Science & Nature

Ebb and flow: New series features Illawarra waterways

We’ve looked recently at gardening for lizards, for insects, for birds and for platypus, and I’ve really enjoyed the journey. But taking that sequence further (’Gardening for whales’ anyone?) would require leaps of creative imagination and...

Emma Rooksby

July 2025

Science & Nature

Gardening for Platypus in the Illawarra

This is the last in the ‘gardening for’ series for now, and hence time to take a step up and beyond! Let’s all garden for Platypus. It sounds pretty unusual and niche, doesn’t it? Perhaps something that is only possible for folks with a large...

Emma Rooksby

June 2025

Science & Nature

Gardening for frogs in the Illawarra

Cool weather is here, it’s bracing and refreshing, the wind rushes in from the west and south, down gullies and across the plain. I don’t enjoy it, but I feel even more for the frogs. There are sixteen-odd local frog species across the Illawarr...

Emma Rooksby

June 2025

Science & Nature

Gardening for birds in the Illawarra

Illawarra native birds are a diverse and interesting lot, with 440 species recorded in Terrill Nordstrom’s 2020 A guide to Birdlife of the Illawarra Region of NSW. With our diverse ecology and coastal areas, the region is home to everything from...

Emma Rooksby

June 2025

Science & Nature

Gardening for lizards in the Illawarra

At this time of the year I’m a bit of a lizard myself: very slow to get moving of a morning, and seeking out the sun to warm up. I’m always amazed how much difference a bit of direct sunlight on your skin makes on a chilly winter’s day. It’s already...

Emma Rooksby

June 2025

Science & Nature

Gardening for insects in the Illawarra

For example, the Giant Dragonfly (Petalura gigantea) is the only threatened insect species on record in the Illawarra region. But it’s almost certain that there are insects and other invertebrates in the area that are threatened with extinction, or...

Emma Rooksby

May 2025

Science & Nature

Gardening for bandicoots in the Illawarra

A few weeks ago, Backyard Zoology had a wonderful article about finding a bandicoot in her back yard. What good fortune to have these amazing creatures around us in the Illawarra. Each of us who has a little patch of ground to play with can help...

Emma Rooksby

May 2025

Science & Nature

The Hare’s Foot Fern of happiness

In some cultures, carrying a rabbit’s foot has been considered to bring good luck. Perhaps it still is? I’ve certainly never tried carrying one around, but I’m always reminded of this bit of folklore when I see one of my favourite local ferns around...

Emma Rooksby

May 2025

Science & Nature

Fruiting now: all sorts of Lilly Pilly

We’re into the European month of May and well into the season of autumn, although it’s still very warm compared with the long-term average for this time of year. In the D’harawal calendar, the indications are that we are in marrai’gang, when it’s...

Emma Rooksby

May 2025

Science & Nature

Fruiting now: the yummy White Aspen

We are fortunate in the Illawarra region to have so many useful and edible native plants. First Nations Peoples have known of and used these plants for many generations, but we more recent arrivals can be unaware of the good things around. One such...

Emma Rooksby

April 2025

Science & Nature

What’s in a name? In this case, a marsupial mystery!

Kangaroo Vine (Cissus antarctica) is one of the commonest and most recognisable of our local rainforest vines. Its distinctive toothed leaves with obvious venation, and the coppery-brown colouration of new tendrils and leaf stems, are often visible...

Emma Rooksby

April 2025