A community planting event will be held in O’Keefe Park, off Eglinton Road on Saturday. 

“It’s a great day to enjoy the outdoors and help to rehabilitate the Macquarie River,” mayor Graeme Hanger said. 

“By planting native plants along the riverbank, volunteers can watch over time as the plantings grow and provide habitat for our native birds, frogs and fish.”

The planting will start at 9am and conclude at 12pm. 

This is the fourth year Bathurst has participated in National Tree Day, with previous events held along the Macquarie River in Rankens Bridge Park, and along Raglan Creek in Kelso.

“This year’s National Tree Day site was chosen as it is the last section along the riverbank in O’Keefe Park to be revegetated with native plants,” Cr Hanger said.

“Over the last three years, Council and volunteers have been revegetating this section of the river as part of the “Restoring Regent Honeyeater Habitat in the Bathurst Region” project.”

He said 500 native trees, shrubs and grasses have been set aside to plant on Saturday.

The varieties chosen are local and native to Bathurst, and include wattles, bottlebrush, banksia, tea-trees, mat-rush and flax lillies. 

Tree guards will be installed around the new seedlings, and frost protectant applied, to ensure they survive the remainder of winter.

National Tree Day got off to any early start on Friday, with some schools having planting activities, including Eglinton Public School.

Year six and kindergarten students planted about 20 native trees in the school playground, helped by staff from Bathurst Toyota, which supports the day.

“They have been asking questions like how big will they grow and what are they planting, so they are really interested in it,” Bathurst Toyota’s Tabitha Plunkett said.