Long before the sandstone paths, the lawns, the wrought-iron gates or the greenhouses, this was Gadigal land — part of the Eora Nation. A place of fishing, gathering, ceremony, care. A place shaped over thousands of years by knowledge carried in songlines and soil.
When the British arrived in 1788, they claimed the ground and everything on it. What followed was the Garden’s first life: a landscape turned into a laboratory of empire, where exotic species were imported to make the colony feel more like “home.” But across two centuries, as science evolved and the country began to reckon with its own history, the site shifted. Today the Gardens operate as an intersection of care — botanical, cultural, and ecological — where Gadigal knowledge and contemporary science start to speak to one another again.
1860s–1930s | Empire’s Greenhouse
- Established in 1816 on the colony’s first farm, the Royal Botanic Garden quickly became a hub for colonial botany.
- Early directors like Charles Fraser and Joseph Maiden catalogued “new” plants, moved crops across continents, and shaped the Gardens in the image of British order.
- Indigenous plant knowledge was frequently mined but almost never acknowledged.
- Palm houses, formal lawns, and imported ornamentals projected an aesthetic of imperial control.
1940s–1980s | Turning Toward the Native Landscape
- Construction of the Australian Native Rockery began in the 1940s — a quiet revolution in a garden built for foreign species.
- By the 1970s, curators embraced ecological planting principles rather than purely decorative arrangements.
- The rise of environmentalism shifted priorities: conservation over conquest.
- Aboriginal perspectives began shaping interpretation and land-care, though slowly and unevenly.
1990s–2003 | Restoration & Living Science
- Under the newly consolidated Botanic Gardens Trust, the Gardens transformed into a modern scientific institution.
- Restoration projects expanded and revitalised the Native Rockery, highlighting endemic flora from across NSW.
- Conservation breakthroughs — like safeguarding the Wollemi Pine — connected the Gardens to deep geological and evolutionary narratives.
- Formal acknowledgements of the Gadigal people as Traditional Custodians emerged.
Key points
- The Royal Botanic Gardens sit on Gadigal Country, part of the Eora Nation.
- Founded in 1816, the Gardens evolved from an imperial project to Australia’s oldest scientific institution.
- The Australian Native Rockery symbolises ecological repair and cultural reconnection.
- Modern conservation here integrates Indigenous knowledge with contemporary science.
- The site remains a space for healing, research, education and historical reckoning.
Explore online
- Digging Our History – 1800s \| Botanic Gardens of Sydney
- Australian Native Rockery \| Royal Botanic Garden Sydney
- Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney — Wikipedia
- Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney — Museums of History NSW Heritage context + broader historical interpretation.
Further reading
Foley, Denis & Read, Peter — What the Colonists Never Knew: A History of Aboriginal Sydney (UNSW Press, 2020) Essential context for Country, custodianship and colonial transformation.
Gilbert, Lionel — The Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney: A History 1816–1985 (OUP) The definitive institutional history.
Clarke, Philip — Discovering Aboriginal Plant Use (Rosenberg, 2011) A powerful bridge between Indigenous knowledge and modern ethnobotany.