Today it is more like a botanical garden with a dry creek bed lined with pebbles and boulders, a gazebo, hedges around its boundary, native trees and shrubs dotted around the riverbed, lawn pathways and cremation walls.

Jaslyn was only 15 months old when she lost her battle against a rare and aggressive brain tumour.

Staff at Woronora had been planning a children's cemetery for several years and they asked Jaslyn's parents, Lisa and Ross, if they would consider burying their firstborn in Karinya.

Mrs Rowley, formerly of Lugarno, accepted the offer because it meant that her daughter, who in life had been unable to play with other children because chemotherapy had suppressed her immune system, would be with other youngsters in death.

``You learn to live with it but you never get over it,'' Mrs Rowley said.

``To know she is with other kids really meant a lot to me'', because Jaslyn was the first child to be buried at Karinya, ``[and spent] the first few months alone there.''

On their hands and knees in the dirt, Mrs Rowley and her grandmother Beverley would place rocks and flowers around her gravesite to mark its existence.

Today, there is no mistaking Karinya, which takes its name from the Aboriginal word for peaceful and happy home.

It assumes its own area near the playing fields behind the Centenary Court crematorium and is the resting place of 45 children aged 0 to 12.

A plaque denoting Karinya will be unveiled at its official opening on September 17.

Representatives of Sids and Kids and the Bonnie Babes Foundation have been invited to the opening.

Gener al manager Ivan Webber said families were appreciative of having their own space within Woronora Cemetery to bury their young ones.

``Child deaths are probably the saddest part of our job here,'' Mr Webber said.

``That's part of the reason why we established Karinya.''

A section for stillborns was established at Woronora Cemetery 20 years ago but before Karinya there had not been any separate provision for children aged up to 12 years.

Crematorium manager Stephen Donaldson and gardener Mandy Verdich said visitors said Karinya was a beautiful and relaxed area.