National Tree Day

National Tree Day is Australia's largest community tree planting event.

Join in the fun and help save the planet - one tree at a time.

Schools Tree Day is held on the last Friday in July and National Tree Day is held on the first Sunday in August - in 2022, that means July 29th and July 31st.

The event started in 1996, founded by Planet Ark and since then over 26 million trees have been planted on this day.

 

Did You Know?

Australia ranks #46 in global tree planting rankings, beaten by countries such as Sierra Leone, Guatemala, Benin, Azerbaijan, Burundi, and Peru

 

"The planting of a tree... is a gift which you can make to posterity at almost no cost and with almost no trouble, and if the tree takes root it will far outlive the visible effect of any of your other actions, good or evil.”
George Orwell

Get Involved

There are plenty of structured activities and community events relating to this day that you can find locally. You might find one here at PlanetArk's website.

There are many community planting events that occur locally throughout the year - check your local council's website or social media for opportunities.

Or you can go solo and plant a tree or three in your own back yard. There's no need to wait!

 

Did You Know?

We each need six trees to give us enough oxygen to breathe. Are you stealing someone's air - or planting more to share?

 

“Planting trees, I myself thought for a long time, was a feel-good thing, a nice but feeble response to our litany of modern-day environmental problems.
In the last few years, though, as I have read many dozens of articles and books and interviewed scientists here and abroad, my thinking on the issue has changed.

Planting trees may be the single most important ecotechnology that we have to put the broken pieces of our planet back together.”
Jim Robbins

Around 15 billion trees are destroyed globally every year, according to sources including the UN Environmental program. We've lost almost half the trees that ever were, and the earth is at the least forested time in recorded history.

 

Did You Know?

Increasing the tree canopy in streets and urban places can lower local temperatures by 10C or more.

That could make all the difference between usable streets and those too hot to walk in

Tree canopy can also reduce the amount of air conditioning and energy use for cooling.

 

Planting trees in urban and suburban spaces is more than good for the environment, and your energy costs.
While you're saving the planet, you might also make yourself some money.

 

Did You Know?

Australian housebuyers will pay $35,000 more for a house in a leafy street, against one without trees.

Our tubestock trees start at $3.70 - which must be the cheapest way to increase the value of your home, and the health of the planet.

 

"You know me, I think there ought to be a big old tree right there. And let's give him a friend. Everybody needs a friend.”
Bob Ross

 

We've got small-sized trees for handkerchief plots; trees without invasive roots that you can plant near buildings; elegant shade trees for acreage homes; even trees you can grow in big pots.

There's rainforest trees for sub-tropical climates, frost-hardy trees for cold climates; and drought tolerant trees for outback climates. Something for everyone!

 

Get Inspired

““The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. ”
William Blake

Did You Know?

Dead trees can be just as valuable as living ones to wildlife.

They provide hollows for nesting and hiding, branches for perching and roosting, and food for insects that in turn provide food for birds and mammals

 

"When great trees fall in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses eroded beyond fear."
Maya Angelou

 

Get Planting

If smaller plants can get a toehold, they provide a welcoming environment for larger plants and trees to take root.
And those roots can burrow down deep in search of water, holding the soil together and encouraging yet more plants to join them.

 

“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself.
Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

 

Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in her native Kenya. In 2004 after much campaigning, action, and challenging oppression to achieve her goals, she became the first environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Her action sparked a worldwide movement called the Billion Tree Campaign, launched in 2006.

The billionth tree was planted in 2007, and the campaign changed its name to the Trillion Tree Campaign in the International Year of Forests 2011.

 

Did You Know?

Ethiopia planted 350 million trees in one day in 2019

 

The aim of the Trillion Tree campaign is to plan one trillion trees globally : to combat habitat loss, deforestation, urbanisation, and climate change.

 

“Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons.”
Willa Cather

Cather was writing about the American west, in the early hardscrabble days of European settlement. Trees in parts of Australia can be rare too, and have a hard fight to grow. But it's worth persevering - every tree makes a difference.

 

"Jaime had never realised that trees made a sound when they grew, and no-one else had realised it either,
because the sound is made over hundreds of years in waves of twenty-four hours from peak to peak.

Speed it up, and the sound a tree makes is vrooom.”
- Terry Pratchett, Good Omens

 

Did You Know?

The world record for solo tree planting is held by Canadian Antoine Moses who planted 23,060 in 24 hours in Alberta, on 17 July 2021.

 

So come on - let's get tree planting! It's easy with our tubestock plants.

As Ms Maathai says -

"Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking."