You can plant a tree on your verge, and water it weekly for the first two summers: we are happy to provide advice and a tree. More information below.
The City of Greater Geraldton has guidelines on what and where you can plant a tree. They do offer a Verge Tree program of their own, but Geraldton Tree Canopy offer support independent of the Council.
Geraldton Tree Canopy Advocates’ Verge Trees
What We Do:
- The Geraldton Tree Canopy Advocates will donate and plant the tree (or trees) but you are required to take over the aftercare.
- We do a “Before You Dig” search, before planting your tree to locate the tree corridor on your verge. If you have overhead powerlines, we will plant a medium to smaller tree that will not reach power lines at maturity.
- We plant trees for canopy and survivability, but the young trees need watering for two to even three years before they are independent.
- The watering commitment means three Geraldton dry seasons (generally from October to June)
Your Watering Commitment:
- Year one – twice a week deep watering of 30 litres (3 buckets) at a time during dry season
- Year two – once a week deep watering 30 litres during dry season
- Year three – every second week 30 litres during dry season
- If you go away in summer for more than a week you need to get someone to water your tree or sadly your tree may die.
- Not everyone can commit to this, and we understand if you cannot and would not put in the tree.
Our Trees
We have a variety of stock available, which often includes:
- Large trees
- Poincianas, Tuarts, Tipuana (Pride of Brazil), River Gums, Spotted Gums & Coastal Peppermint
- Medium / Smaller
- Tuckeroos (which are very popular), Flowering gums (e.g. Eucalyptus Rosea, Snow Queens) Coral Gums, Illyarrie, Flowering paperbark.
- We occasionally have exotic trees such as non-fruiting olives.
You can find more resources for deciding what to plant (and where) here.
The Process:
- Our organisation is purely voluntary: volunteers plant the tree.
- We would hope to put in your tree within 3 weeks of your commitment.
- Once the site is identified we come out the day before, create a small depression and pre-water to make the soil soft and then we plant the next day.
- Important caveat: we do not plant in semi-rural areas (which usually already have trees) as our volunteer capacity is limited. We can sometimes donate a tree for the owner to plant (dependent on availability).
Other options you may want to consider
- If you don’t think you can commit to watering, the Geraldton City Council has a free tree programme. They put in a free tree and they water it. This programme is often over committed, and you will generally go on a wait list so be prepared to wait.
- You can source, plant and care for your own tree e.g. visit a local nursery – Tree n Dragon on Horwood Road have some beautiful trees. If you plant a native tree that will grow above 3 metres, the State Government will rebate the cost up to $150. This scheme is called Treebate and can be found if you follow the following link. Treebate Program
We always appreciate people who can help dig the holes to plant the trees in, and often we plant a small forest – which makes for a fun morning working with friendly people from around Geraldton.
You can make new friends by volunteering to help on our bulk-watering rounds each week: we need people who can tow the watering trailer and people to hold a hose for 1-2 hours each week. What a great way to meet new friends!
You can volunteer to water individual trees near you through the summer months: they need 20 litres of water once per week: let us know how many you can foster, and where.
Geraldton Tree Canopy Advocates 