Imagine improving our Environment

Queens Jubilee Tree Planting along Diamond Creek Corridor

Nillumbik residents value our natural environment, our flora and fauna. We recognise the loss and degradation of that environment due to the impacts of urban development, particularly the loss of habitat, canopy loss and the breaks in wildlife corridors such as the Diamond Creek.

The grant to the Rotary Club of Eltham from the Australian Government’s “Planting Trees for the Queen’s Jubilee” program will enable us to target these deficiencies and enhance the environment by in-fill planting in specific areas in the Diamond Creek corridor in Eltham North.

A Project Launch and Ceremonial Planting event was held on onsite in October 2022 with Kate Thwaites MP, Member for Jagajaga, Keith Wolahan MP, Member for Menzies and Cr Frances Eyre, Mayor of Nillumbik Shire Council participating. They spoke briefly on the significance of the program and the importance of the Diamond Creek project, before the planting of commemorative trees and unveiling of a plaque The Rotary Club of Eltham will engage many community groups for the Autumn-Winter 2023 mass plantings.

National Tree Day Community planting at Challenger St, Diamond Creek

National Tree Day 2022 was celebrated in Nillumbik with a mass community planting event in the Challenger Street wetlands, Diamond Creek. The Rotary Club of Eltham joined with the Shire and Planet Ark in the organisation of the event which attracted many families to the site. It was significant that some senior family members were able to tell the younger ones that they had planted “those established trees over there” in a similar event 20 years ago!

Tree Planting Montmorency Secondary College

The project, a combined effort between the College’s Interact Club and the Student Representative Council was overseen by teachers Vicki Bucher and Claire. The 30 enthusiastic students beavered away digging holes (in reclaimed housing rubble), planting, watering and mulching in a grassy area. The area includes a plaque in recognition of it being planted out under the Queen’s Jubilee Planting program and it already has strongly growing trees, planted some months earlier. If the new plants mature as well as those previously planted, the area (the size of three housing blocks) will provide a shady retreat for students and be a lasting leafy commemorative legacy.