Yerrabingin RooftopGarden

The first ever Indigenous rooftop garden dedicated to native plants is open to the public, and you can take a tour of it every week.

THERE ARE 70 finger limes planted into 25-40 centimetres of soil on a rooftop of a new building in Eveleigh. Warrigal greens glisten under the weight of recent rainfall, two species of saltbush (‘old man’ and ‘ruby’) tussle for space, and we’re taking a deep inhale of the spearmint-like scent of a native rivermint (we’re told it’s very good in a Mojito).

Christian Hampson, one of the founders of Sydney’s first native plant rooftop farm, tells us, “We’ve got mountain species next to coastal species next to Western Desert species – and they’re all thriving in this environment. The idea is that we create an ecosystem up here, attracting birds and insects that pollinate our food species.”

Hampson and his co-founder Clarence Slockee have spent three months tending to their new garden. Hampson is a Woiwurrung and Maneroo man and Slockee is a MindjingbalBundjalung man. They’ve named their operation Yerrabingin, which means ‘we walk together’ in Muktung, from Hampson’s grandparents’ language. Says Slockee: “We’re bringing Indigenous knowledge and process into the design thinking space to hopefully have more involvement in the beginning right through to the end.” More than 2,000 plants are flourishing on the fourth level of Yerrabingin House, which is found next to the former Australian Technology Park. The rooftop is set up with the support of developers Mirvac, who are behind the new Commonwealth Bank buildings too. Hampson and Slockee are managing all the green spaces in the precinct – part of their vision to showcase Indigenous land management and native foods on a larger scale. On the roof they have a restriction of 900kg weight per square metre. “Essentially what you’re standing on now is a 500m2 planting box,” Hampson says. Plants like native raspberries and sea fig have around 25-40cm of growth before the roots grow down through the geofabric and into the cavity space below, which allows free drainage, and the soil has been designed so it’s essentially half the weight of normal organic soil.

The space is open to the public – many of whom come up for a peaceful lunch break – and there are weekly tours of the native plants. “This is a prototype of what could happen on roofs within Sydney, but also what Aboriginal communities on their own land can look at doing.” Yerrabingin is working with restaurants like Paperbark, and cocktail bar Bulletin Place is one of their regular shoppers. Kylie Kwong uses their saltbush in her pork buns. They’re also working with Indigenous catering companies and have applied for a liquor licence so they can run foraged cocktail parties. They’ve even had their first wedding enquiry. “The more diverse the rooftop can be,” Hampson says, “the more sustainable the space is.”