Trees provide a raft of interconnected environment, social and economic benefits to the community, such as shade, streetscape amenity, air pollution reduction and habitat for wildlife.
Council manages 55,000 street trees and a significant number of park trees. The street tree population alone is worth an estimated $182 million.
Tree Selection and Planting
Council's trees are important for our future: to help adapt to climate change, provide much needed shade and provide habitat for our wildlife.
Greater Dandenong’s current tree canopy is one of the lowest in Melbourne, so Council have committed to planting more trees in public spaces and maintaining high tree planting and establishment standards for both Council and developers. It is important to plant the right tree in the right place in the right way.
Tree Selection and Planting fact sheet
Tree Maintenance
Council manages all trees on public land within the Greater Dandenong. This work includes:
- running the street tree pruning program
- identifying significant trees
- managing dangerous trees.
Fallen trees
Contact Council on 8571 1000 if you find a fallen branch or tree in a street or public area. They will act straight away to remove any dangers.
Street Tree Pruning Program
Council inspects and prunes nature strip trees every two years to ensure that:
- trees are clear of the overhead electric wires
- people are safe to use the footpaths without having to worry about the danger of low-hanging branches
- traffic is safe to use the roadway without having to worry about the danger of low branches
- they remove deadwood from trees
- they shape young trees.
Council has divided the municipality into 13 blocks. Council then prunes each block worked at a certain time over the two-year cycle.
Contact Council to find out the date for your street's next pruning.
Removal of Council trees
Council aims to increase low canopy cover over the next ten years. It aims to keep as much tree canopy as possible.
Council's Tree Removal and Retention Guideline sets the criteria for tree removal. Council will keep trees that do not meet the criteria for removal.
Electric Line Clearance Management Plan
The Electricity Safety (Electric Line Clearance) Regulations 2020 which include the Code of Practice for Electric Line Clearance (the Code), set out the duties of the responsible council officer to ensure:
- safety to public and property
- provision of a safe working place for employees and service providers
- management of vegetation to maximize the amenity value of the Council’s street trees
- management of trees for aesthetic, cultural, ecological or environmental significance
- community satisfaction with the manner in which the necessary works required by the Act are performed.
Electric Line Clearance Management Plan 2023-24
Greater Dandenong Pruning Precinct |
Programmed Cut |
|---|---|
| Annual Pruning Block 2 | July 2023 |
| Block 12 | August 2023 |
| Block 2 | October 2023 |
| Block 5 | November 2023 |
| Block 8 | February 2024 |
| Block 1 | April 2024 |
| Block 9 | June 2024 |
| Block 13 (Non-declared area) | June 2024 |
| Block 14 (Non-declared area) | June 2024 |
| Annual prune 1 (2024) | August 2024 |
| Block 11 | August 2024 |
| Block 4 | December 2024 |
Tree Protection on Development Sites
Council have committed to planting more trees in public spaces, protecting existing trees and maintaining high tree management standards for both Council and developers. The primary goal of tree protection is the long-term survival and viability of a tree while allowing appropriate development to take place. Council managed trees will be protected from construction works and other activities that threaten tree condition, safety or amenity by adherence to Australian Standards.
Urban Forest Tree Repurposing Guidelines
Australian Local Governments play a critical role in managing and caring for public vegetation, especially trees. This care also includes managing the end of each tree’s life. Trees in urban areas are removed for many reasons, including old age, making way for urban development or infrastructure, managing risk, conflict with infrastructure and even misdemeanour.
Tree repurposing enables opportunities to use logs for habitat or milling them into lengths of timber for furniture making or mulching them to return nutrients to the soil and create habitat.
This Guideline looks at the various options and a decision-making framework for repurposing timber from trees removed in the public realm. It provides an easy to use decision making hierarchy to maximise the repurposing opportunities arising from the removal of urban trees.
Greater Dandenong is home to many river red gums.
