Geelong tree planting initiative aims to enhance environment and community wellbeing

City of Greater Geelong is offering community members new trees for local reserves or nature strips at no cost as part of the City's 2024 tree planting season that has just commenced.

Council is aiming to plant more than 1,635 trees across Greater Geelong, including more than 1,200 new trees to be planted as part of this year's program.

The planting of 425 additional trees will be in response to trees that have been removed and requests from the community.

Rollins Road in Bell Post Hill will receive 100 new trees, 19 trees will be planted along Maryland Drive at Corio, 97 trees are bound for Ocean Grove's Alderbaran Road, Portalington Road in Newcomb will receive 28 trees and Geelong's Carr Street will get 68 new plantings.

Efforts continue to make our northern suburbs greener with the City planting more than 4,000 trees in Corio over the last few years.

Council has planted 21,294 trees across the region since the Urban Forest Strategy was adopted in 2015 and accepted handover of 34,429 trees from developers during this time.

Mayor Trent Sullivan notes “Council's commitment to our urban forest is a driver behind Geelong being designated a Tree City of the World for a second year in a row.

“We are committed to plant canopy trees in our streets and parks because they cool our neighbourhoods, improve health and wellbeing, and clean the air.

“There are unexpected benefits too, such as how tree shade can reduce household cooling costs, an avenue of street trees can increase property values and tree lined shopping centres have higher economic activity.”

Thousands of trees that the City manages can be tracked through their Urban Forest Dashboard. The dashboard allows you to zoom in on any city-managed tree to view its species, age, health and size.

Residents can ask for a new tree on their nature strip or to replace a dead or vandalised tree at geelong.link/Request-a-tree.

Details about the location, species and number of trees in Council’s 2024 tree planting season can be found at geelong.link/TreePlanting.

Image. The Algerian Oak tree at Mont Street, Newtown recently added to the National Trust of Australia register. Credit: City of Greater Geelong