More than 80 volunteers registered in the first hour of the planting at the Ploughman’s wetland yesterday morning.

Orange City Council natural resources coordinator Roger Smith described that as a great response.

“It’s probably not the best time to be doing it in Orange because of the weather but we like to keep it in line with the national day,” he said.

This is the 16th year of Planet Ark’s National Tree Day, which has seen 15 million trees planted around Australia in that time.

Volunteers at the Orange event included young families, Landcare members and neighbouring residents.

Mr Smith said the wetland was chosen because council wanted to involve the community in its development.

“We have four constructed wetlands in Orange and we hope to get the community and schools involved as much as we can,” he said.

“We will employ two full time staff to maintain and manage the four constructed wetlands. They’ll be used for environmental recreation and birdwatching, and we want to get the schools from a regional and local level involved to explain what the function of a wetland is and what they do for the environment,” he said.

Volunteers planted native species including banksias, tea trees, eucalypts, bottle brushes and hakeas.

Councillor Reg Kidd said there were numerous locations around Orange where the results of past plantings were now well-established.

“Orange City Council was one of the first councils to get involved in National Tree Day,” he said.

Jane Paul from the Daroo Orange Urban Landcare Group said plants were an essential part of the delicate ecological balance in a wetland.

“One really important thing is the little plants along the edges of a wetland. People are concerned about mosquitoes, and the plants around the edges will encourage little animals in the water which will eat mosquitoes. The plants will also help filter the water,” she said.