Mother Teresa had it right when she wrote about the power of the collective coming together to creating something wonderful! And here at Fifteen Trees regularly see the power of the collective when we gather trees from numerous small businesses.

– Small Business Trees –

This year, 13 small businesses have kicked in towards our tree planting projects, and their contributions have added up to 865 trees. And it is made more epic by the fact that they are small businesses. Being a small business ourselves, we know the challenges they face in keeping their venture afloat. Out of this act, an epic amount of Australian fauna – right down to the tiniest insects – will have new habitat and future generations of humans will have cleaner air to breathe.

The trees went to one of our favourite sites (Bendigo) with one of our favourite landing groups (Northern Bendigo Landcare Group). They were a mixture of eucalyptus and acacias, all native to the district and supplied by Neangar Nursery in Eaglehawk, VIC.

Once again we have enjoyed generous support from Fifteen Trees and their supporters. We planted these trees at Bendigo Creek Streamside Reserve. We strategically planted these at 1m spacing to provide dense planting with a view to assisting in longer term weed control.

Nicole Howie | Secretary | Northern Bendigo Landcare Group

Shout out to the following:

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• Janine Strachan from Green Design Solutions who is designing sustainable homes that embraces the climate and block.
• Melbourne Data Analytics Platform (MDAP) at The University of Melbourne brought together an expert panel (Professor Eduard Hovy, Professor Kathryn Bowen and Dr Ben Hegarty) to offer insight into their experiences and approaches to working with research partners across disciplines and the broader community. These trees were planted in recognition of the panel giving up their time and contributions to the panel discussion.
• Sonja and Caitlin from Ethical Design Co in Melbourne, help companies and organisations to grow sustainably through beautiful conscience design.
• Amber Drop Honey. Ana and Martin are purchasing trees to provide flowers for our honey bees, both native and European.

20 trees

• Janet from Pony Parties of Melbourne who organises hand led pony rides for kids in the forest at Flowerdale.
• Diana from Koguis, a fabulous shop in Richmond that supports and sells Colombia handcrafts. Diana purchased these trees to promote Green Friday, a concept that is moving people away from the spending culture of Black Friday.

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• Melanie periodically purchases 15 trees to help reduce the carbon footprint of her beautiful gallery, Studio Mel Sky. Located on Dja Dja Wurrung country in central Victoria, Mel produces amazing artworks and runs painting workshops.

30 trees

• Aliya Hutchison from Soap Cult, a beautiful company producing alternative soaps from plant oils and butters. Aliya purchased her trees to celebrate Earth Day (April 22nd).
• Soroptimist Ballarat are a group of professional women who use their shared sisterhood to support people in the community, the region and the world.
• In June, we participated in an online talk with BREAZE and pledged to plant a tree for everyone who participated. All up 30 people joined in on the presentation. Thank you to Ellen for organising.

60 trees

• Andrew Marlow is a ‘passivhaus architect’ at Envirotecture. Andrew is a sustainable building designer and also provides a consulting service.
• Sam from Platypus Co-working, provides both co-working space and private office space to those in the Ballarat district. Sam, also runs monthly Lunch ‘n’ Learn online sessions to help small businesses keep up to date with digital marketing.
• Belinda Forsyth, Thermomix Team Leader in Ballarat and district. Belinda is planting one tree for every Thermomix sold.

Huge thank you to all our contributors, together you have helped a small rural community complete one of their revegetation projects.

Writer – Colleen Filippa. Founder and Director of Fifteen Trees, Colleen has a Bachelor of Environmental Science and has been working in the field of sustainability, education and the environment for 25 years.