After some 30 years from this planting by Cook, substantial European gardens had been established on the sites of the first settlements in the north and south of the State. These cultivated plots had no ornamental value, but served as experiments to test the potential for growing a range of fruits, grains and vegetables in this strange new land.
Following the arrival of a contingent of settlers and convicts from Norfolk Island to the Risdon Cove area and beyond, gardening activities, with its associated array of new introduced plants, became a high priority daily task. Before leaving the Risdon Cove site for the more favoured Hobart site, elms, hawthorn hedges, willows and a number of exotic English grasses had become well established. These provided the propagule source for their gradual spread into the surrounding woodlands and further up the Risdon Vale and Grassy Tree Rivulets.
These weeds still remain in the rivulets today, albeit in smaller numbers, after recent weed control activities, which have succeeded in restricting their earlier dominance over the native riparian vegetation.