Creating Canopies with 500 more trees

Thursday, 16 November 2023

Thanks to Greater Sydney Landcare and Landcare NSW’s Creating Canopies tree planting program, 500 trees were planted at Grey Gums Reserve in Cranebrook over the past weekend as part of Penrith City Council’s successful Bushcare program.

The Creating Canopies event series began in 2020 with great success, seeing 114 volunteers contribute over 400 hours planting 3,360 trees across three local Penrith sites for two years.

Penrith Mayor Todd Carney attended the event and commended the volunteers for coming out to the site, especially on a warm day to help conserve the bushland.

"Our City supports 17% of the remaining bushland of the critically endangered Cumberland Plain in Western Sydney, so events like Creating Canopies are especially important to help conserve our local environment,” Cr Carney said.

“The trees and shrubs planted as part of the event will improve the quality of the bushland and biodiversity, provide habitat for animals such as birds, and over time increase the green canopy to help cool and shade the area, which forms a part of the Great West Walk.

“It was a great day, and I look forward to seeing the program continue to grow next year,” he said.

Greater Sydney Landcare Project Manager of Creating Canopies Danielle Packer said Creating Canopies was proud to partner with Penrith City Council once again.

“In time, these trees will grow tall and be an asset to the community by providing shade and cooling to help combat urban heat”.

“We look forward to seeing them mature and make the area a more beautiful and comfortable place to enjoy,” she said.

Grey Gums reserve is 3-hectares of bushland that contains the critically endangered Cumberland Plain Woodland vegetation community - and a population of the endangered Spiked Rice-Flower.

Keep up to date with Penrith Council’s bushcare events by subscribing to the Bushcare Bulletin at penrith.city/bushcarebulletin

The events are part of the Creating Canopies in Greater Sydney tree planting project. Landcare NSW and Greater Sydney Landcare are planting 200,000 trees as part of the Greening Our City program to help reduce urban heat in Greater Sydney. Proudly funded by the NSW government.

Photo captions:
Landcare NSW CEO Turlough Guerin, Penrith Mayor Todd Carey and Councillor Robin Cook attended the morning event.

Information contained within this news release was correct as at Thursday, 16 November 2023.