TREENET

🌳🌳 SYMPOSIUM PLATINUM SPONSOR

We're very pleased to confirm our PLATINUM sponsor for this year is GREEN ADELAIDE. Green Adelaide

Green Adelaide is actively working towards a cooler, greener, wilder and more climate-resilient metropolitan South Australia. Their work is unique as it delivers environmental outcomes amidst urbanisation, and embeds Kaurna traditional practices in delivery.
Green Adelaide also funds a broad range of community driven greening activities across the region.

Thank you for supporting us once again!
Find out more about Green Adelaide on their website: https://www.greenadelaide.sa.gov.au/

And find all the Symposium information on the TREENET website (registration is open!): https://treenet.org/27th-national-street-tree-symposium/

🌳🌳 URBAN TREE OF THE MONTH FOR JUNE

Mulga (Acacia aneura) is an iconic Australian species that thrives naturally across much of Australia’s arid zone, where its survival proves its tolerance of heat, frost, and drought. It is listed in overseas nurseries’ inventories but wasn’t widely known by Australian urban foresters when considered for TREENET’s tree species trials project in 2021. Examples showing mulga’s suitability for planting in urban streets have been photographed in Alice Springs and in Brewarrina. The Brewarrina specimen was 6m tall and its canopy 8m wide when photographed; Alice Springs’ tree was slightly taller and narrower. Both specimens provide valued shade for townsfolk, for birds and insects and for other fauna. These examples and saplings planted by councils as trials can be seen in the Urban Tree Trials Database.

A reason for mulga’s absence from council planting lists might be lack of knowledge about its rate of growth. The knowledge that these small trees live for centuries might lead to the perception that they grow slowly. Such perceptions are the reasons TREENET’s trials are needed.

TREENET engaged Trees for Life in 2021 to grow mulga for trials. The trees were re-potted and grown on in nurseries at the Cities of Onkaparinga and Port Adelaide Enfield before planting in 2023. These trials have shown reliable establishment, survival and growth, with most trees growing 2m or more in height in the past 3 years. Some of the young trees have also flowered and produced seed.

Mulga can grow to 10m tall but is usually smaller; it is included in the SA Government’s ‘permitted’ list for planting beneath powerlines. Although still in their early stages, the trials trees planted in 2023 have established and grown reliably, with no known losses to date. If you’re looking for new species to broaden your palette for planting in arid and semi-arid areas, consider adding the termite-resistant mulga as a low risk native species.