At the time this was a government funded garden, one purpose of which was the testing and propagation of plants for the benefit of the farmers of southern Ireland.

In addition to his horticultural duties, Drummond discovered several species of plant that were previously not known to occur in Ireland.

[2] In 1828, in the midst of an economic recession, the British government withdrew funding for the botanical garden, and Drummond found himself unemployed with six children to support.

His first grant was 100 acres (40 ha) of rich alluvial soil at Guildford, where the Helena and Swan Rivers meet.

He took possession of this land on 16 November 1829, and set about establishing a public nursery, probably with a view to encouraging his appointment to the salaried position of Superintendent of Government Gardens.

He chose a site in the present-day Perth suburb of Ascot, consisting of extensive river frontage and low-lying flats prone to flooding.

Stirling agreed to press for the decision to be overturned, and in the meantime invited Drummond to take over the Government Gardens for his own profit.

Moore responded by purchasing a hundred packets of different kinds of seeds from Drummond's son Johnston, who had developed a taste for botanical collecting from his father.

In September 1835, Drummond sent a letter to Mangles, in which he included the seeds of a number of species that he had collected when exploring the Helena Valley.

Mangles lent them to John Lindley, who described a number of new species from them, thus establishing Drummond's reputation as a botanical collector.

Meanwhile, Mangles had tired of Drummond's "commercial attitude towards botany" (Hasluck, 1955), and had begun to receive the outstanding collections of Georgiana Molloy.

The collections were divided into sets and sold by George Bentham, but it was many years before Drummond eventually received payment.

In 1839 he received a letter from Sir William Jackson Hooker of Kew Gardens, who requested seeds and plants, and offered to dispose of collections on Drummond's behalf.

In 1840 he undertook an expedition to King George Sound, helping to identify a poisonous plant as the cause of many stock deaths in the area.

The expedition, which included Captain John Scully, Samuel Pole Phillips and Johnston Drummond, discovered the vast tract of open pastoral land that is now known as the Victoria Plains.

During late 1843 and 1844, Drummond made a number of journeys with his son Johnston, who was rapidly becoming a highly respected botanical and zoological collector in his own right.

In 1845 and 1846, financial difficulties prevented Drummond from undertaking any further expeditions, but late in 1846 he was informed that he had been granted an honorarium of £200 by the British Government for services rendered to botany.

When Hooker received it he wrote in his Journal that he had "rarely seen so great a number of fine and remarkable species arrive at one time from any country".

In 1850, Drummond joined a surveying expedition that sought to establish a route for overlanding stock to Champion Bay.

He returned to Toodyay in December, and over the next few months he wrote a series of articles on the "Botany of the Northwestern District of Western Australia", which were published in five issues of the Perth Gazette from April 1852, and later republished by Hooker.

He retired to Hawthornden, where he tended his grape vines and garden, and maintained an occasional correspondence with Hooker and other botanists.

Hall (1978) quotes Joseph Maiden as writing "He was far and away the most successful collector of Western Australian plants of his time."

In 1948 a memorial in honour of John Gilbert and James Drummond was erected in bush near Drakewood by ornithological and historical societies.

Of his sons, Johnston became a respected botanical collector in his own right; James became a Member of the Western Australian Legislative Council, and John became the colony's first Inspector of Native Police.