Sometimes there are really simple things everyone can do to reduce their carbon footprint. When staying at a hotel, choosing to skip the room cleaning and having a tree planted instead, is one of those things. Less cleaning means less emissions, and by planting a tree we increase the planet’s capacity to deal with climate change. We guarantee that trees donated by Australian hotels are planted in Australia, and we are very excited to now work with Fifteen Trees to ensure a true local impact for our partner hotels in Victoria.

Hugo van Roermund | Manager | Hotels for Trees Australia

There are also meaningful benefits when it comes to guest experience and brand reputation. Today’s travellers are increasingly conscious of their impact and are drawn to accommodation providers that offer simple, tangible ways to make a difference during their stay. Programs like Hotels for Trees empower guests to take part in positive environmental action, creating a deeper sense of connection and purpose. Fifteen Trees are very proud to be the Hotel for Trees planting partners for participating hotels in Victoria.

Victorian Planting Sites in 2026 (in order of planting timeline)

• Site 1 | Grampians | 1,300 trees
• Site 2 | Mt Worth | 1,200 trees
• Site 3 | Bendigo | 900 trees
• Site 4 | Westgate Park | 6,024 trees
• Site 5 | Bellarine Peninsula | 1,500 trees
• Site 6 | Dunkeld, VIC | 1,500 trees
• Site 7 | Bacchus Marsh, VIC | 1,581 trees

Site 1 | Northern Grampians, VIC | 1,300 trees

The trees were planted at Grampians/Gariwerd District of Western Victoria, by the Buloke and Northern Grampians Landcare Network (BNGLN). In brief, this network supports 18 local Landcare and environmental groups across the Shires of Buloke and Northern Grampians. Restoration efforts aim to return the region as closely as possible to its original ecological vegetation state. This landscape, once densely forested, has suffered from waves of deforestation due to mining (1860s), timber harvesting (1920s), agriculture (1930s) and bushfires.

Grampians contains more than 30% of the state’s flora with dozens of endemic species, which means they do not grow anywhere else. It is truly amazing when you think about it. It’s a relatively small area to contain that much representation of the state’s flora.  This small rural district is one of the biodiversity hotspots in Victoria, with majestic tree species such as box, ironbark, River Red Gums, Victorian Blue Gum and the iconic Buloke tree (which Red-tailed Cockatoos rely on for food).

Parks Victoria and local Landcare groups such as the Buloke and Northern Grampians Landcare Network (BNGLN) are playing a vital role in restoration of this district. Recovery efforts include:

• Supporting natural regeneration of native plants, many of which are fire-adapted.
• Managing soil erosion and minimising land disturbance.
• Maintaining water quality in local rivers, creeks, and streams.
• Controlling invasive species that threaten native flora.
• Assisting native wildlife with nesting boxes and the control of feral predators.
• Replanting in sensitive areas.
• Establishing long-term recovery strategies, including monitoring and community involvement.

When groups get together on an environmental project, wonderful things happen that benefit every living thing on this planet!

Andrew Borg | President | BNGLN

The Grampians/Gerward District is home to the majestic flora of box and ironbark eucalyptus, River Red Gum and Victorian blue gum species. The continued expansion of habitat corridors and revegetation projects like this one will help support the long-term recovery of this precious landscape.

Site 2 | Mt Worth, Gippsland, VIC | 1,200 trees

Mt Worth sits in the heart of Kurnai Country, and it’s here that 1,200 native plants have recently gone into the ground. A mix of blue gums, Strzelecki gums, silver wattle, blackwood, hop gardenia, prickly moses, grey gums, narrow leaf dogwood and hazel pomaderris. Together, they’re beginning the slow, patient work of restoring a landscape.

Much of the area is open pasture, but it’s what sits at the edges that needed attention most. A steep eroded gully had been slowly losing ground, and an old dam had become a tangle of weed species and fallen timber. Both have now been cleaned up and planted out with a chosen mix of native trees, shrubs and grasses.

There’s also a magnificent old Mountain Grey Gum that’s been standing watch over this property for a very long time. To give it the best chance of sticking around for many more years, a fence has been put up around it to protect the soil from compaction, and new plantings have been tucked in around its base for company.

And the wildlife? This part of Gippsland is remarkable. The new plants will create habitat for small birds (weebills, superb blue wrens, wattle birds and even lyrebirds) as well as frogs and aquatic life around the dam. Wombats, wallabies and gliders move through here too. But perhaps the most extraordinary resident is one most people have never heard of – the Giant Gippsland Earthworm. One of the largest earthworms on the planet, it lives underground in exactly the kind of gully that’s now being protected. And somewhere up in the canopy, Strzelecki koalas (a distinct and vulnerable population) depend on the very eucalypts being planted here today.

It’s a privilege to have Hotels for Trees and Fifteen Trees supporting us with our tree plantings this year. It will great a long-lasting benefit by supporting biodiversity, improving wildlife habitat, providing shade and shelter and tackling climate change.

Rob East | President | Mt Worth and District Landcare

Site 3 | Bendigo, VIC | 900 trees

Just off the Midland Highway in Huntly, on the outskirts of Bendigo (known to the Dja Dja Wurrung people as Dhelkunya Dja) there is a popular rest stop that travellers have been pulling into for decades. The Huntly Lions Park is a welcoming spot, anchored by some magnificent old River Red Gums.

But beneath those grand old trees, the understorey had all but disappeared. The grasses, shrubs and smaller native plants that once filled the spaces between the trunks, providing wildlife habitat, food and shelter for local fauna, had largely vanished over time, leaving a beautiful but incomplete landscape.

The Northern Bendigo Landcare Network has been quietly working to change that. Adjacent to the Lions Park sits the Huntly Gardens Natural Reserve, a valuable piece of remnant native vegetation that the group has been carefully rehabilitating. Recently, that vision took a significant step forward thanks to Hotels for Trees.

A heartfelt thank you to Hotels for Trees, Fifteen Trees and Neangar Nursery for supplying the plants that made it all possible. Nine hundred reasons to pull over and look a little more closely next time you’re passing through Huntly.

Nicole Howie | Facilitator | Northern Bendigo Landcare Group

Landcare members and their friends gathered across two community tree planting days to get 900 native plants into the ground. It was exactly the kind of collective effort that makes community tree planting in Australia so special.

The hope is that the restored understorey will bring native fauna back to the Lions Park. Birds, insects and small mammals depend on a layered, healthy native forest.

Site 4 | Westgate Park, VIC | 6,024 trees

Most people crossing the Westgate Bridge are too busy watching the traffic to notice what’s happening beneath them. But if you looked down you will see literally ‘the lungs of Melbourne’. In June, a collection of personal from Hotels for Trees, Fifteen Trees, Quest Preston, Quest Werribee and Liv Hotels all came together for a common purpose – to help restore Westgate Park, along with volunteers from Westgate Biodiversity.

Westgate Biodiversity is a not-for-profit organisation doing remarkable work in the shadow of one of Melbourne’s most iconic landmarks. Their mission is to transform what was once a degraded industrial site into a thriving pocket of native bushland – a genuine wildlife habitat and green escape for the people of Melbourne’s west. It’s community tree planting in one of the most unexpected settings imaginable, and it’s working.

The organisation is deeply woven into the local community. They grow and sell locally indigenous plants to home gardeners, schools and revegetation projects across the region, while simultaneously restoring Westgate Park – season by season. Their vision is a long one – a layered, biodiverse native landscape that will be flourishing decades from now.

The most recent planting with Hotels for Trees, brought a beautiful diversity of native species to the site – wattles including Heath, Golden, Lightwood and Coastal varieties, Black, Swamp and Green sheoaks, Grey and Marsh saltbushes, White, Smooth and Common correas, and a rich range of eucalypts including River Red Gum, Yellow Gum, Ironbark, Swamp Gum and Manna Gum.

That diversity is the whole point. As each species flowers and fruits at different times of year, the park will offer a continuous supply of food and shelter for local wildlife across every season – birds, insects and small mammals moving through a landscape that is slowly, steadily restoring itself. It’s ecosystem restoration happening right in the heart of the city, rebuilding a biodiversity corridor where nature and people can genuinely share the space.

Site 5 | Bellarine Peninsula, VIC | 1,500 trees

This planting of native trees, shrubs and grasses at Portarlington will help enhance and restore the natural environment by increasing native vegetation and providing additional habitat for local wildlife. The trees will provide food, shelter and nesting opportunities for native birds, insects and other animals, helping to increase biodiversity across the site. The plantings will also help reconnect areas of existing vegetation and create stronger habitat corridors through the rural landscape. As the trees and associated under-storey mature, they will provide greater protection for the soil, help reduce wind exposure and erosion, and contribute to improved soil health and water retention.

Using locally appropriate native species will also help restore some of the vegetation that would have historically occurred across the Bellarine Peninsula. Over time, the planting will become an integrated part of the vineyard landscape, providing environmental benefits. The project will therefore provide long-term benefits for local biodiversity, habitat and landscape resilience, while contributing to the broader restoration of native vegetation across the Bellarine Peninsula.

Site 6 | Dunkeld, VIC | 1,500 trees

Friends of the Forgotten Woodlands Inc. (FOFW) are a not for profit group whose mission is to restore the missing keystone species that were once in abundance across the Victoria Volcanic Plains region. Given the highly productive nature of this area, they focus on three keystone species – Silver Banksia, Drooping Sheoak and Sweet Bursaria. These trees were cleared early on by European settlers, with has resulted in these species being found as isolated remnants across the region (which stretches from Melbourne to Hamilton).

Koalas live among Silver Banksia, Drooping Sheoak, and Sweet Bursaria, but with an important distinction – they do not use these trees for food. Instead, they live in them for shelter, shade, and temperature regulation, relying on neighbouring eucalyptus trees to eat. These three plants are part of the native Plains Grassy Woodlands ecosystem of south-eastern Australia (particularly Victoria and South Australia), which serves as a vital habitat zone for wild koalas.

For the main planting of the season, 21 people attended the two-day planting. These community planting days provide likeminded people to get together, when they usually would not, and enjoy each other’s company in a beautiful setting.

The Friends of Forgotten Woodlands Inc. are incredibly grateful for the help to let us do what we love most. To have such a significant donation made to us because someone believes in what we do is very heartwarming. On behalf of all the FOFW members, thank you so much.

Aggie Stevenson | President | Friends of Forgotten Woodlands Inc

There are many animals which will benefit from these plantings. Species of significance include Brolga, Horsefield’s Bushlark, Growling Grass Frog and other amphibians, Eastern Grey Kangaroo, wallabies, koalas, reptiles, black swans, Fat-tailed Dunnarts to name a few.

Site 7 | Bacchus Marsh, VIC | 1,581 trees

On Wurundjeri Country, at Werribee, VIC at a former plantation site,  people arrived from all corners – local scout groups, a geocaching group, Friends of Werribee Gorge, Friends of Long Forest Mallee, Moorabool Landcare Network, Bacchus Marsh Lions Club, the Victorian Mobile Landcare Group, the Victorian National Parks Association and the Shah Satnam G Green S Welfare Society. A remarkable cross-section of community, united by a single morning of planting.

This was Grow West’s Community Planting Day, an annual event that has become something of a fixture in the local calendar, and one that means far more than the trees it puts in the ground. It’s about care for Country, connection between neighbours and the kind of collective effort that reminds you what a community can do when it turns up.

And turn up they did. By the end of the day, 3,500 native seedlings had been planted across Bald Hill Reserve with 33 species in total, including Drooping Sheoak, Tree Violet, Common Everlasting Daisies, New Holland Daisies, Austral Bluebells, Chocolate Lilies, Wallaby-grass and Spear-grass. It’s a diverse and deliberately chosen mix, designed to rebuild the under-storey that a plantation site lacks and to restore the kind of layered, functioning ecosystem that local wildlife depends on.

Koalas move through this landscape. Swift Parrots (one of Australia’s most critically endangered birds) have been recorded in the area. Little Eagles hunt overhead. Every seedling in the ground at Bald Hill Reserve is a step toward giving these species more of what they need, that is, a connected, healthy, biodiverse native habitat spreading across the Moorabool landscape.

Grow West would like to thank our sponsors that contribute seedlings to projects like this. Without this type of support, we wouldn’t be able to have the significant impacts that we do in connecting habitat throughout the middle to upper Werribee catchment.

Lindy MacRaild | Partnerships Coordinator | Grow West.

The Moorabool Shire Council has already done significant work at this site, and the Grow West planting day builds beautifully on that foundation, increasing biodiversity, improving habitat connectivity and ensuring that Bald Hill Reserve continues to grow into something genuinely extraordinary.

Would you like to read more about where we planted for Hotels for Trees in 2025? Here’s the link to last year’s trees.