2026 National Tree Day, Paxton’s Reserve

By Will Twycross

As part of the thirtieth National Tree Day, (Sunday July 26) Up2Us gathered the troops and turned up at Paxton’s Reserve (end of Paxton’s Lane near the Buller Road) with lots of trees (500) and lots of people of all sizes (60). The trees were not big enough to hug. It was muddy, so there were twice as many gum boots as there were people.

Girl Guides were in evidence and had the clear advantage over everyone else, as they were going to get a Nature badge at some future date. This being the case, they were very fast diggers and excellent planters. Those who weren’t going to score a badge were holding out for a sausage, weren’t planting as fast, and were often seen leaning on shovels, looking at birds and discussing how cold it was.

Some parents were distracted by having too many children to look after. Some of these rascals were much more interested in the creek and sliding in mud than in Nature badges and planting trees. The mud sliding did indeed look like fun. Some older people were distracted because they had no children to look after, so they just had to get on digging holes, fitting tree guards, whacking in stakes, planting trees and leaning harder on their shovels.

When you are planting trees next to someone, it’s hard not to overhear their conversations. Some people were talking about serious stuff like what a great job Parks had done in clearing the willows, how trees breathe, and the relative merits of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Some talk was more immediate, like how they had just hit a rock, while others were sure that their trowel needed to be sharper, and one person was sure that it was Saturday. There was also considerable thought and learned discussion as to tree species and which should go where, but these conversations usually ended up with something like .. “just plant it”.

It was obvious that some planters were more committed to the cause than others. Some even came and went. Of these, some excused themselves, but others just slinked away, muttering below their breath words like, “church”, “pickleball”, and longer phrases such as “where’s the toilet?”, “my hands are muddy” and “I’ll just go and get a mattock”. Some returned, and some were never seen again.

One notable thing was that the creek bed has many currently occupied wombat holes, so some discussions turned around what the wombats would think when they came out that night and found a whole lot of tree guards where previously there had just been grass. Would they eat the tree guards, and then the trees and use the stakes to shore up their burrows? No one was quite sure, but everyone had an opinion, which is important. One small child wondered if the wombats were listening. It seemed quite likely that they were.

It has to be said that the sausages (courtesy Mansfield Youth and the Shire BBQ) were of the highest calibre and were consumed in large numbers. An environmental baseline audit was planned, but the outcomes will not be published for another thirty years, when the trees are bigger or have been eaten by wombats. The audit report will reveal a forest with a few old stakes, tree guards and gumboots lying around, and lots of wombat holes. The audit will incorporate phrases like “where did the mud go?”, “carbon sink”, “wombat impact” and a key recommendation that participants who didn’t receive a Nature badge be awarded a retrospective elephant stamp.

Thank You

National Tree Day would not have been possible without the incredible support from our community. A huge thank you to Mansfield Shire Youth for putting on a delicious BBQ lunch for our volunteers after all their hard work — there's nothing quite like a good feed after a morning of planting. We'd also like to thank Mansfield Shire Council for their continued support in helping make this day happen.

And of course, thank you to every single volunteer who came along and got involved. Whether you've been planting with us for years or this was your very first time, your effort on Sunday is already making a difference to Paxtons Reserve and the wildlife that calls it home.

Here's to the next 30 years of National Tree Day, and to many more plantings at Paxtons Reserve.

National Tree Day is supported by the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority through funding from the Victorian Landcare Grants and the Victorian Landcare Program.