13/09/2026
Did you know each street tree costs the Council about $1,123?
They are valuable, not just financially but for their impact on improving cool shade and that often forgotten parlour trick of creating oxygen.
Tomorrow night, the City of Armadale Council will consider an updated Urban Forest Strategy. For many years City staff, volunteers and Councillors have contributed towards the proposed strategy to increase trees in the City's urban areas.
The City's urban tree canopy has dropped to 19.6%, and unfortunately while we can't do much about the wholesale clearing of new housing estates (they get approved by the State Gov, not us), we can do more to protect and enhance the trees on the 24% of the total urban area the City manages. This includes parks, reserves, verges ect.
Importantly, this strategy aims to increase canopy cover on
public and State-owned land, along with residential educational campaigns to promote the development of canopy on private land.
This is a shared challenge with many local government areas
also experiencing:
▪ Ongoing loss of canopy on private land due to:
o infill development and population growth
o tree removal on residential lots
▪ An aging urban tree population with local species diversity
▪ A lack of coordinated leadership on urban forestry at the State level.
To meet the strategic target of 25% urban canopy cover, we need to plant at least 57,805 new trees and rely on developers and private landowners to plant an additional 24,773 new trees over the next 15 years. Importantly these trees need to thrive and reach a height of more than 2mtrs.
This work isn't free and the proposed cost to meet this target is estimated at between $2.5m - $5.6m per year, which includes;
- Street tree request program
- Tree Giveaway program
- Urban Forest parkland planting program
- Road Reserve planting program
The strategy presents various alternate funding models which Council will need to review ahead of the LTFP process. (Check out appendix F if you want to see them all).
But critically, the increase of trees in the long-term generates an increase in maintenance costs to the City's annual budget. We'll need more fertiliser, more watering trucks (yes, it's soil wetter and fertiliser being applied to trees in the rain, not just water!) and we'll also need to clean up the leaves and branches with machinery and staff.
If you want to help out right now - you can order a "free" street tree online before October 31. https://my.armadale.wa.gov.au/service/parks-development-and-urban-forest/our-urban-forest/resident-request-for-a-free-verge-tree/
