JANE Cottee has been passionate about plants since she was five years old, collecting them and giving them names.

Now 66, she’s enjoying her retirement through plants in a new role, president of the Southern Tablelands Ecosystems Park (STEP), which has a dedicated garden in the north-west of the National Arboretum.

STEP started as an idea between the Australian Plant Society and Friends of Grasslands.

“The 2009 idea took a while to percolate, and the then Chief Minister Jon Stanhope agreed that this site, the Arboretum, would be great and so it all started to happen,” says Jane.

“So the first planting began, ready to show off at the Arboretum opening in 2013.”

Since then, STEP has grown to 2.4 hectares, including 28 different species of wattle and 16 different species of eucalypts.

“One of our recent initiatives is developing a wattle walk, so in spring people can come and it will be beautiful and golden and scented,” says Jane.

“If you were keen to learn about each of the wattles and where they grow in the Southern Tablelands there will be signage.

“Apart from being a regional botanic garden, we’re very keen on education so we really encourage members of the public, school groups, horticulture students, people who just are interested, to come and look around the gardens.”

Jane says she is a plant person and a qualified horticulturist, but she wasn’t particularly familiar with a lot of the plants from the Southern Tablelands.

“When I retired I thought I needed to be able to give back, and work with like-minded people,” she says.

“I’m always interested in learning. I’ve learnt a lot from people through doing this work and I think it’s a fantastic resource for Canberra,” she says.

Every Thursday the STEP “working bees” do more than just plant trees, they choose plants for the nursery, harvest seed, mow, weed control or “just work where it’s needed”, but the real highlight of the day is morning tea.

“It’s great camaraderie and everyone brings something along,” Jane says.

STEP is managed and maintained by volunteers from all walks of life.

“It really is quite a significant effort. We have members who do know quite a lot about plants, but others who know nothing, but just love being in the outdoors,” she says.

“On average we get 15 to 20 people weekly and there’s probably about 35 who are active all the time, but not everyone comes every week.

“We get a lot done in two or three hours and there’s always some new little thing coming along.”

Jane says she is a fairly recent addition to STEP, having joined in 2019.

“I have only just become president in the last month or so, and being able to make a difference is my favourite part,” she says.

“You can really see the difference for the work you’re putting in. Then to bring people through and show them all the different leaves and see them touching and smelling is a great thing.”

But, she says, they have had a lot of damage done by the recent rain.

“We are trying to recover a lot of areas. There are gaps where trees had been, but have died from sitting in slush and mud,” she says.

“We’ve just had more pathwork done, but we’re always repairing paths and everywhere you look at the moment there are weeds.

“It goes along with the usual challenges of working outdoors, being careful of snakes and wearing appropriate clothing and footwear.”

Fortunately, droughts aren’t so bad.

“We did actually do a lot of planting, because you can water in a drought, but you can’t take water out of the soil if it’s raining all the time,” says Jane.

“We’re lucky we have rainwater tanks, so we do have access to that and taps so there’s a lot of bucketing that happens. We’re always on the lookout and wary of fires, too.”

But challenges aside, Jane says STEP has big plans for 2023 and beyond.

“We do have a new area just opened up that we’re getting signage for. It’s called the Gallery of Grasses, and we’re also going to have a Parade of Peas coming soon.”