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I have just been chatting to the horticulturist in charge of the Herb Garden and Ethnobotany Garden at Sydney Botanic Gardens and she tells me she has received the go ahead to redesign the Ethnobotany Garden there. It will cost about $60,000 all up over a few years, and this includes irrigation and a new structure as well as plants. The theme is to be "Melanesia Village" (or some such) and a central "Village Hall' (proposed) to be surrounded by medicine and food plants from Papua New Guinea (mostly), West Papua, also The Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, New Caledonia, and so on. She will hopefully be sourcing plant material directly from these islands, but was also very interested in receiving material from sources other than the usual - other botanic gardens or very sporadic in-house collecting trips (which hardly ever come off). She seemed quite enthusiastic about getting the online community ("your friends", she said to me) on board, and was happy to have suggestions and ideas (as well as plants and seeds!) thrown her way. She's one of the best horts at the gardens (in my opinion) and she's done a sterling job of the herb garden so I'm really looking forward to seeing what she makes of the ethno garden there. So if anyone wants to get involved, donate seed or plants, come up with random ideas, chuck them into this thread and we'll see what naughty plants we can get into the ethno garden in Sydney!