Extract from ABC News
Drew Gailey with a thistle-like native called blue devil, at Patho Plains grassland in Northern Victoria. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)
When Kath Raulings set out to write a book about native grasses, she quickly discovered it was difficult to source good photographs.
So she planted a patch of native grassland in her suburban Melbourne backyard.
The 27 varieties of grasses and forbs (flowering plants with soft stems) became the still life subjects for the illustrations in her book.
"I'd sit here, measure them, and draw them as accurately as I could," Ms Raulings said.
"I just wanted to use the skills that I had in the hope that it may help people to identify them."
Illustrating what's left of vanishing native grass species
Ms Raulings's delicate pencil drawings are a feature of her book, Endangered Grasslands — Rescuing the Native Grasslands of South-Eastern Australia.
Kath Raulings grew her own specimens to inform the illustrations in her book. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)
The book is a testament to her decades-long passion to save these endangered ecosystems.
"In western Victoria's volcanic plains there's 0.5 per cent [of native grasslands] left,"the 82-year-old said.
The picture across much of southern Australia is almost as bleak.
Since European settlement, intensive grazing, agricultural practices and urbanisation have all conspired to obliterate native grasslands.
This native grass is called pink mulla mulla or lamb's tail Ptilotus exaltatus. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)
Though now protected by environmental laws, conservationists say remnant grasslands are still being destroyed.
Many exist only because they occur in reserves, such as cemeteries and railway sidings.
Native grasslands surviving in the margins
One remarkable example is at Altona, about 20 kilometres from Melbourne's CBD.
Amid smokestacks and industrial warehouses, somehow this remnant native grassland, now a gazetted reserve, has escaped destruction.
Its multitude of delicate grasses and forbs provides a fascinating glimpse into what this landscape looked like prior to European settlement.
A remnant native grassland at Altona in Melbourne’s west survives beside industrial warehouses. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)
At Patho Plains in northern Victoria, farmer Drew Gailey wants to see greater public awareness about the inestimable value of native grasslands.
He showed Landline a 16-hectare reserve, a small island of grass in an ocean of wheat fields, that he described as 'magical.'
"Because there's about 60 different species, the diversity of plants, the way it has been managed — it's just perfect," Mr Gailey said.
"There's stuff here that you wouldn't expect."
That includes evidence of the plains wanderer, a near-flightless bird that is critically endangered.
Built for Australia's climate
Natives are all more drought-tolerant and resilient than exotic species, requiring no inputs such as fertilisers, and some have high nutrient value for livestock.
"The old dairy farmers used to say four mouthfuls of grass on the irrigation country is only worth one mouthful of grass out here because it's just got such a diversity of plants and species," Mr Gailey said.
Until recently, the push to re-establish native grasslands has been focused on restoring or building native landscapes along roadsides and in public spaces.
But native grasses are gaining popularity across a range of agricultural systems.
Native Seeds's Darren Vincent said they could be used in a variety of ways.
"As inter-row for vineyards to bring in beneficial insects and agriculture [and] as that native perennial base for a grazing system or a cropping system," he said, as examples.
Darren Vincent sits in a field of weeping grass, which is now used in domestic lawns. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)
Based at Eurobin in north-east Victoria, and the largest enterprise of its kind in Australia, Native Seeds has 40 hectares under cultivation.
"Having long-lived perennials holding the soil and keeping the soil rich and alive improves any enterprise,"Mr Vincent said.
The company is now propagating 50 different grasses and some wildflowers, and Mr Vincent said it was working hard to supply the growing demand.
Harvesting the hardest seeds
Native grasses are notoriously fickle to grow and harvest, so the company has built and adapted bespoke harvesting machinery, capable of collecting the tiny, delicate seeds of some species.
Native Seeds can produce many kilos of seed from just one handful. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)
"The demand has always been there for conservation and environmental needs but supply has been really difficult because of the intricacies of the native species," Mr Vincent said.
"Understanding how they work and trying to get them into commercial-sized scale has always been an issue, so we set out 20 to 25 years ago to try and unlock some of the secrets."
The company has supplied seed to major landscape projects, including Warralilly, near Geelong in Victoria, where eight hectares of restored grassland include species of wallaby grass, spear grass and the weeping grass Microlaena stipoides.
This formerly weed-infested reserve is now a haven for wildlife and a popular outdoor space for people.
The re-establishment of native grasses alongside roadsides has also come under discussion of late, following last month's disastrous Victorian bushfires, several of which started along road verges.
Natives are usually far less flammable than exotic species.
Winnowing, a process by which chaff is separated from grass seeds, often needs to be done by hand. (ABC Landline: Tim Lee)
Mr Vincent said natives could play a major role in suburban areas as well.
He joked that his dream was to see every lawn replaced with drought and shade-tolerant weeping grass.
"We've got a saying: 'It's from this land, it's for this land,'" he said.
"It's suited to our soils, it's low fertility … low growing and slow growing.
"You can almost put the mower away."
Watch ABC TV's Landline at 12:30pm AEST on Sunday or stream anytime on ABC iview.
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