A cheerful crowd of 130 Ocean Grove residents dug into Lake Avenue Reserve in the sunshine at the weekend, planting and watering more than 500 native trees.
\nThe National Tree Day event \u2013 one of many around the Bellarine \u2013 was organised by Ocean Grove Coastcare in partnership with the City of Greater Geelong, and partly funded by an arts project \u2018blank canvas\u2019 initiated by local John Bowman early in 2019.
\nThe blank canvas project invited artistically inclined people to paint trees on small canvases, which were later sold at a fundraising event.
\nOver 150 people participated, and the cash was used to purchase trees for the planting day, with the City of Greater Geelong matching the money raised.
\n\u201cPeople\u2019s passion for trees is now on show both through local painting and local planting,\u201d John Bowman said.
\n\u201cAlong with Coastcare and the City of Greater Geelong I was thrilled to see so many people wanting to improve the environment for native animals, birds, and themselves
\n\u201cWe had so many young children coming along to help out, and many of them have noted which trees they\u2019ve planted, and will visit the reserve regularly to check on their progress.
\n\u201cWhile there is still plenty of room to kick a footy around at the reserve, in the coming years it will look so much more like the area once did before land clearing for farming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A cheerful crowd of 130 Ocean Grove residents dug into Lake Avenue Reserve in the sunshine at the weekend, planting and watering more than 500 native trees. The National Tree Day event \u2013 one of many around the Bellarine \u2013 was organised by Ocean Grove Coastcare in partnership with the City of Greater Geelong, and […]<\/p>\n