Story: Catch Up with Sue
Episode: Episode 12
Presenter: Trevor Cochrane
Air Date: 14th May 2022

Sue McDougall, a fellow Garden Guru, is now the director of the Western Australian Botanic Garden and leads the Horticulture and Living collections directorate within the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority.

• The directorate deals with most of the green in the park and works very closely with turf and environment and bushland and the Western Australian botanic garden is unique in the world whereby it is a representation of flora within our state and displays over 3000 species of WA’s unique flora.
• It was opened in 1965 and since then has been curated by exceptionally talented people.
• Sue has the incredible privileged opportunity to lead a dedicated team who have the same passion for WA flora as all of us.
• It would be fair to say Kings Park holds a special place in almost all West Aussies hearts, regardless of age.
• The nursery grows about 5000 plants per year, for the display garden and for bushland in KP and Bold Park. These plants are ready to go out to the areas in the garden and bushland.
• They grow the species in Rocket pots, brilliant for root development, aerial root pruning. And establishing native species. Part of the nursery is dedicated to the ex situ living collection where we keep plants in pots for conservation.
• The collection and management is an integral part of our ex situ collection and conservation for WA species and our Curator Seed collection is processing seed from the summer trips.
• Sue also supports the Hort development team and the latest project is the Chlorotic Decline syndrome, where the alkalinity of the water and soil has caused decline of the heath of many of our trees.