Thousands of Australians will plant a tree this weekend as Planet Ark’s National Tree Day reaches its 30th year, and to celebrate the weekend’s activities, Forestry Australia has released nine tips to keep those trees alive long after the day. That is according to Leon Holt, a Forestry Australia Director and tree grower, who fronted the guide the association published on Thursday, as schools across the country marked Schools Tree Day today.
“Planting a tree is something anyone can do,” Holt said of an act he describes as making a positive and lasting difference to both community and environment, with the nine tips built so the tree is still standing in 30 years. Planet Ark put the national tally at 27 million two years ago, and more than 28 million trees have been planted since 1996.
Forestry Australia wants the species settled before anything is bought, matching the tree to local climate, soil, space, and purpose, and telling planters to work out annual rainfall, seasonal temperatures, and the frost, heat, or drought a site is exposed to. Small seedlings often settle in faster than advanced trees, which give instant height at the cost of more careful planting and watering to get established.
Conditions shift across a few metres of the same block, and planters are asked to check sunlight, shade, wind, moisture, and competition from nearby plants, keeping new seedlings well clear of older trees that take the water, nutrients, and light first. Packed soil is loosened so air and water can move through the profile, weeds are cleared, and guards are put up wherever grazing animals, wildlife, or pests are likely.
Roots go in gently at the right depth, the soil gets firmed by hand, the trunk stays above the soil line, and mulch sits back from the stem to hold moisture and stop weeds. Planting day marks the start of the work rather than the end, with Forestry Australia committing planters to watering, weed control, checks, and cover for the first few years, when a tree’s chance of reaching full size is largely set.
[In-text image 1600×1200 — caption:] Careful handling and planting at the correct depth gives a young native seedling the best chance to establish, one of the nine tips Forestry Australia released ahead of the weekend. (Photo Credit: Supplied)
It comes as Victorian researchers put numbers on that follow-up work, with the Arthur Rylah Institute running a post-summer survival method at 65 sites in 2019 and 2020 and finding rainfall, tree guards, and species choice each made a clear difference to how many seedlings came through.
[In-text image 1600×1200 — caption:] Volunteers plant and guard rows of native seedlings across a paddock, the tree guards Victorian researchers found made a clear difference to how many survive their first summer. (Photo Credit: Supplied)
Forests need the same attention at scale, with Forestry Australia’s members applying science, practical experience, and local knowledge across native forests, plantations, and environmental services to keep them healthy and resilient.
Australians have been putting trees in the ground on organised planting days since the first Arbor Day in Queensland in 1890, more than a century before Planet Ark started counting. The charity has funded the seedlings themselves since 2019, with its Seedling Bank backing native stock for schools and community groups.
Planet Ark counts 300,000 volunteers a year across an event Olivia Newton-John co-founded with the charity in 1996, and every one of the more than 28 million trees planted since then started as a seedling somebody had to keep watching.
