National Tree Day

Yesterday, Dave and I braved the rainy weather to show up at our local council’s National Tree Day event, which is run by Planet Ark. There were about 35 people aged 6 to 60-ish; plus a troop of scouts, a few people from Planet Ark to keep us organised, and about a million enormous mosquitoes. I had no idea that mozzies came out in the rain, but there you go. We got a bit wet and muddy, but it was good fun.

If I heard the supervisor correctly, our group planted about 3000 melaleuca trees, also known as paperbarks. This is part of an on-going revegetation project, and we could see the work done on previous Tree Days: there were already a lot of casuarinas and paperbarks in the area, which had been planted 4 years ago. The supervisor told us that the area had been cleared for farmland decades ago, then just left alone more recently. It’s now been rezoned to parkland, and they’ve been getting more wildlife back in the last few years.

The planting area had already been covered in mulch, but some parts of it were more like a pond due to the (wonderful) amount of rain we’ve had over the last few days. We were told how to plant: 3m apart, make a hole in the ground using a stake or a trowel, put your sapling in, move on. It couldn’t have been easier! Trowels, stakes, gloves and Aeroguard were provided. Dave and I borrowed some wellies and waded out into the flooded part to look for mounds of mulch we could plant in.

Afterwards there was a sausage sizzle, but we had to get going. I had fun clomping around in boots, and will definitely be back next year to see how my saplings are going, and plant a few more.