Wednesday 11 July, 2012

Four community groups and 16 schools across the Tamworth region will plant about 1000 native trees, shrubs and grasses as part of National Tree Day later this month.

Schools Tree Day is on Friday 27 July while National Tree Day is on Sunday 29 July. Tamworth Regional Council is co-ordinating the activities, supplying plants, stakes, mulch and advice.

Pupils at Carinya Christian School at Calala are taking part in the Schools Tree Day for the first time this year.

Other schools taking part are:

Attunga Public School		Barraba Central School
Somerton Public School		St Mary’s Campus of St Nicholas School, Tamworth
Dungowan Public School		Duri Public School
Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School		Niangala Public School
Oxley Vale Public School		St Joseph’s Primary, Tamworth
Oxley High School		Tamworth High School
Moonbi Public School		Tintinhull Public School
Woolomin Public School

About 100 volunteers from community groups at Loomberah, Kingswood, Kootingal and Tamworth will be among more than 312,000 people at 3500 sites across Australia joining the national event on Sunday, 29 July.

Loomberah Hall Committee is co-ordinating National Tree Day for their community. The group's secretary/treasurer Rebecca Barwick said they will plant about 30 shrubs to reinvigorate the gardens around the hall.

Council will run community planting events on the banks of the Peel River behind Wests' Diggers Club at Tamworth and at Altona Park, in Vera Street, South Tamworth between 9am and 11am.

Residents are encouraged to lend a hand at either location and are asked to wear a hat as well as take gardening gloves and a drink.

Tamworth Mayor Col Murray said the Council has distributed thousands of plants for National Tree Day since 2004.

'National Tree Day is just one time when council provides native trees, shrubs and grasses to the local community,' he said.

'Council supplies more than 15,0000 plants for community events, residents, special projects and landscaping projects each year.' 

National Tree Day and Schools Tree Day combine to make Australia's biggest community treeplanting and nature care event. National Tree Day was co-founded by Olivia Newton-John and Planet Ark in 1996 and since then more than 2 million volunteers have planted over 15 million native trees and shrubs.