Melbourne's massive tree planting program continues with 16,000 for Hume, 14,000 for one Braybrook park
A $3 million state round of funding will put more than 100,000 trees into low-canopy Melbourne suburbs and greens 10 busy streets, after already planting half a million across the western suburbs.
The Victorian government is funding more than 100,000 trees in Melbourne suburbs with thin canopy and high heat exposure.
Jaclyn Symes, the environment minister, put her name to the $3 million round on 22 October. Half of it covers 13 tree-planting projects, and the other $1.5 million will green 10 shopping strips and busy streets across Melbourne.
“We’ve already planted half a million trees across Melbourne’s west – now another 100,000 are on the way to suburbs that need them the most,” Symes says.
“From the local park to the shops down the road, we’re making the places Victorians use every day greener, cooler and better places to spend time.”
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The Melbourne park getting 14,000 trees
The trees go into Werribee, Altona and Braybrook in the west, Craigieburn, Sunbury and Broadmeadows in the north, and Pakenham, Cranbourne and Keysborough in the south-east. Hume gets 16,000, and another 15,000 go along the Maribyrnong River and nearby reserves.
Cranwell Park in Braybrook gets 14,000 trees on its own. The old Sunshine City Council bought a former piggery on the site in 1976 and turned it into a park, and it spent years as a bare hillside wedged between industrial sites. Now it’s an off-lead dog park with a playground, perched above the Maribyrnong upriver from Footscray Park, and Maribyrnong City Council lists it as Cranwell Reserve. Since late 2020 an all-weather path has linked Cranwell Street to the river trail.
Why Richmond, Southbank and the CBD made the cut
Tree money only goes to projects in 16 council areas rated above 3 on the heat vulnerability index, Brimbank, Hume, Merri-bek and Cardinia among them. The streets money is open to all 31 metro councils, which is how Richmond, Southbank and the CBD landed on a list with shopping streets in St Albans, Sunshine West, Brunswick, Clarinda and Chelsea Heights.
The program allows for arbours, green walls and shade structures as well as full redesigns of busy street frontages, and councils have to put in some money of their own.
Round one of a 500,000-tree promise
Government figures had the west’s urban tree cover at 5.5% in 2018, against 25.9% in the east. Since 2021 the More Trees for a Cooler, Greener West program has put 500,000 trees into the western suburbs. The state also launched the $30 million Pick My Park program, inviting residents of growing suburbs to propose and vote on new parks.
This round is the first slice of the $9.5 million program the government announced in September 2025. Back then it promised 500,000 trees. The 22 October release talks about 500,000 “trees and plants”.
The state’s $1.5 million works out at under $15 a tree. Don’t expect much shade from the trees this summer: the program’s published timeline gives grant recipients until 30 September 2028 to deliver.
The announcement lands five weeks before the 28 November state election, so whoever governs after it will decide where the remaining 400,000 trees go across Melbourne.
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