In south-western Sydney, the Mount Ennan Botanic Garden, Australia's largest botanical garden, is spread over 416 hectares of rolling terrain. The garden, opened in 1988 by the Duchess of York, Sarah Fergusson, contains an extensive collection of typically Australian plants - more than 4,000 specimens of Australian plants. It was in this garden that in 1995 Wollemi pines were first cultivated - the oldest plants on Earth, accidentally discovered a year earlier in the Wollemi National Park, 200 km from Sydney. Before that, it was thought that Wollemi pines had already disappeared from the face of the planet. These trees were so valuable that for a while they were kept they were kept in steel cages to protect them from thieves. Today, at the Mount Ennan Botanical Gardens, the world's only collection of first-generation pines, consisting of 60 trees.
The botanical garden is traditionally divided into several themed areas - "The Garden of the Big Ideas", "Garden of Australian Acacias", "Garden of Banksias", etc. Amidst all this blooming splendour there are 160 species of birds, mountain kangaroos wallaroos, Wallabies and common kangaroos, familiar to every tourist. There are 20 kilometres of footpaths and picnic areas. There are also the Botanical Research Centre and the NSW Seed Bank, founded in 1986. The main objective of the bank was to provide the garden was to provide seeds of wild plants, primarily acacia, eucalyptus and plants of the Proteaceae family, which includes about two thousand species. Today research and conservation projects form an important part of the bank's activities.
The construction of the MacArthur Center for Sustainable Livelihoods is nearing completion, which has already begun implementing a number of educational programs to train the local population in organic farming. It is planned that all who wish to grow their own fruit and vegetables, but do not have a suitable plot of land, will be able to implement their ideas at the centre.
