Request a street tree on your nature strip

Trees provide shade, reduce carbon emissions, and contribute to biodiversity, making our neighbourhoods more liveable and sustainable.

They can reduce heat in streets between 5-10C on hot and sunny days, which may not sound like much, but means a huge difference for your thermal comfort and reduces heat pressure on cars and buildings. 

They also provide important habitat for fauna in Nillumbik.

By participating, you can help us create cooler, greener streets while fostering a sense of community pride and environmental stewardship.

This initiative is a vital step toward building a healthier and more resilient Nillumbik for future generations.

You can learn more about what Council is doing by reading our Urban Tree Canopy Strategy.

Council has a two year maintenance program for newly planted street trees to help them establish that include watering, mulching and weeding.

The watering program involves fortnightly watering during the summer, and monthly or as required during the remainder of the year.  

Residents can provide additional assistance to help your tree stay healthy by:

• Providing additional watering for your tree, particularly during the warmer and dry weather conditions. Aim to get the soil moist but not soaking wet. Around 30 seconds of a steady and slow pour is a great rule of thumb. During dry and warm conditions, trees can need up to 2-6 deep waterings a month. 
• Providing additional weeding by hand removing grass and weeds from the base of the tree. This may help the tree to establish by reducing competition for water and nutrients.
• Not cutting the grass around the base of the tree with a lawn mower or weed trimmer closer than 15cm (around a handspan) to the trunk of the tree. Young, thin-barked trees are particularly vulnerable to weed trimmer and lawn mower injury. Damage to the trunk can weaken the tree structure over time and introduce infection, reducing the trees life expectancy. Council will ensure this area is mulched for the first two years instead.

Once the two-year Council maintenance period has ended, you can continue to care for your street tree by watering and weeding (following the guidelines above), and reporting issues to Council.

Please read about watering in the "How to care for my street tree" section above. 

If you see any issue with street trees you can report it to Council.

For urgent and/or dangerous issues such as a fallen or uprooted tree, broken/hanging tree branch that is over a road, footpath or structure such as a bus shelter, car park or playground, call 9433 3111.

Non-urgent tree issues can be reported online. Non-urgent issues may include:

• street trees that need pruning (but are not dangerous)
• detection of weeds, diseases or pests.

The type of tree planted will be determined by a number of considerations including the limitations of the site, species availability and neighbourhood character.

All street trees planted are either native or indigenous species.

Because our street tree program is implemented on a large scale, we order trees from nurseries well in advance, which limits flexibility to switch tree types at the time of planting.

Our selection process focuses on finding the most suitable tree for each location.

We aim to choose trees that can thrive in roadside environments and coexist well with surrounding infrastructure.

Street trees provide valuable environmental, economic and community benefits, making them essential to enhancing our neighbourhoods.

Our goal is to give every tree the opportunity to grow and thrive as planned.

If you’d like to discuss a different placement on your nature strip or have concerns about a newly planted tree, reach out to our Parks and Open Space team by emailing nillumbik@nillumbik.vic.gov.au or call 9433 3111.