Learning About the Forest Giants of Drouin

Published on 22 May 2019

Thank you to The Friends of Drouin's Trees for providing this article, information and images.

Friends of Drouin’s Trees in conjunction with Baw Baw Shire Council have recently installed interpretive signage and seats for many of the town’s ‘giants’.

A giant is any remnant tree with a trunk girth of 4 metres or more. Drouin has in the order of 120 giants with 22 over 6 metres in trunk girth within the current residential town boundary. This is one of the great attributes of the town and what makes Drouin’s environment so unique.

Stage one of the project involved installation of eight signs and five seats, with a second round ready for installation in the near future.

Funding for the seats and signs was via a grant from the Federal Government’s Stronger Communities Programme with Baw Baw Shire Council providing technical know-how, equipment and manpower.

Drouin’s priceless trees are in danger of being lost with the rapid expansion of housing and new developments. Many of the valuable large trees line roadsides forming beautiful vistas, restful places to walk, all the tree-attributes of shade, erosion prevention, water filtration etc as well as invaluable wildlife corridors. So not only are we losing large paddock trees under housing estates we are also losing tree corridors as new developments demand new roads.

Chris Healy, Secretary of Friends of Drouin’s Trees, says it’s more important than ever that we celebrate the remnant trees we have and keep them for as long as we can.

Some of the signs are on Council reserves and some on nature strips within the town. Each sign has detail of the tree name, species, some background information and a small ‘factoid’ about why trees and environment matter. It also includes the walk number in the Drouin Tree Walks booklet and contact details.

The Friends of Drouin’s Trees encourages people to send in comments and photos to their Facebook or blog page. They would love to know what you think.

Image: Sign at the Hearn Park Giant.

Image: Pat Turner, Chris Healy and Judy Farmer (FoDT), Francis Delahaye (BBSC), Alan McColl (FoDT) and Darrell Budd (BBSC).

 Image: Sign of the McNeilly's Giant.