Applications are open for the City of Swan 2025 Free Trees and Plants Giveaway. You can apply for a seedling pack until Friday, March 14, 2025 unless allocations are exhausted prior.
This year collection will take place at the City of Swan Operations Centre, 212 Great Northern Highway, Middle Swan to give us more room to efficiently give out plant packs.
What do I need to do?
If you live on a property that is 4,000sqm or more, you’re considered a rural resident and will be eligible for our rural pack of seedlings. You can read our rural species brochure here.
If you live on a property less than 4,000sqm, you’re considered an urban resident and will be eligible for our urban pack of seedlings.
Once you have selected the pack you are eligible for and finished our application form, you’ll receive an SMS confirming your application.
Collection days
Rural collection: Saturday, May 31, 2025
Urban collections: Saturday, June 7, Sunday, June 8 and Saturday June 14, 2025
Last chance collection: 8-11am Sunday, June 15, 2025
Frequently asked questions
The Free Tree and Plants Giveaway is held in winter, towards the end of May and throughout June. Applications will open for five weeks from Monday, February 10, 2025 and close on Friday, March 14, 2025 or earlier if the allocation is exhausted.
Applications will be online only through the City’s website. The application form is split into two categories – one for urban residents (properties less than 4,000sqm) and one for rural residents (properties 4,000sqm and greater).
Please visit one of our libraries and use our free computer and internet resources to complete your application. We will not be able to accept application forms sent by post or email.
For community members who didn’t know about the giveaway or simply forgot to register, we’re offering a waitlist. If any seedlings remain at the end of the giveaway residents on the waitlist will be contacted to collect leftover packs.
The waitlist will open Monday, March 17, 2025 until the week before our last giveaway day on Friday, June 13, 2025.
The waitlist will open Monday, March 17, 2025 until the week before our last giveaway day on Friday, June 13, 2025.
If your rated property within the City of Swan is less than 4,000sqm, then you’re eligible for an urban pack. If your rated property within the City of Swan is 4,000sqm or above, then you’re eligible for a rural pack.
If you own more than one property within the City of Swan, you need to complete an application for each property and tick the multiple dwelling box on your form.
If you are a tenant of a rated property, you need to complete an application form and tick the tenant box on your form.
If you own more than one property within the City of Swan, you need to complete an application for each property and tick the multiple dwelling box on your form.
If you are a tenant of a rated property, you need to complete an application form and tick the tenant box on your form.
Pre-selection is only available for rural residents.
You can select your preferred species when you register for the program online. This is not an ordering system, where you can select multiples of your preference. It indicates your top selection of species i.e. preference to trees over ground covers.
Rural residents will get about twenty seedlings of their preferred trees and/or ground covers. Read our species book here [link].
Urban residents will get about ten pre-selected Australian native ground cover, shrubs and clumping plants. There will also be an option to receive a tree in the pack, should you wish.
The plants chosen for the program are grown in December each year, so they are ready for June long before applications open. Logistically it is too difficult to sort all the seedlings grown for the urban packs based on individual choices.
Rural properties are larger, have different soil specifications and have greater availability to plant trees that can increase the urban growth canopy of the City of Swan.
You can select your preferred species when you register for the program online. This is not an ordering system, where you can select multiples of your preference. It indicates your top selection of species i.e. preference to trees over ground covers.
Rural residents will get about twenty seedlings of their preferred trees and/or ground covers. Read our species book here [link].
Urban residents will get about ten pre-selected Australian native ground cover, shrubs and clumping plants. There will also be an option to receive a tree in the pack, should you wish.
The plants chosen for the program are grown in December each year, so they are ready for June long before applications open. Logistically it is too difficult to sort all the seedlings grown for the urban packs based on individual choices.
Rural properties are larger, have different soil specifications and have greater availability to plant trees that can increase the urban growth canopy of the City of Swan.
In 2025, collection will be held at the City of Swan Operations Centre, 212 Great Northern Highway, Middle Swan.
This will help with traffic demands for the urban collection days and the need for more parking facilities for the rural collection days. Seedling packs will be moved from the nursery to the Operations Centre before each collection day.
Information on the traffic management plan will be updated on the City’s website closer to the event.
Rural residents will have one collection day on Saturday, May 31, 2025, with a park-and-collect method of distribution. Residents will be able to select their preferred collection window during the application process.
Urban resident collection will run over three days on Saturday, June 7, Sunday, June 8 and Saturday June 14, 2025. You can select your preferred collection date and time slot when applying online.
This will be a direct-to-boot distribution using the drive-in and drive-out system, as per previous years. We ask that you have a cardboard box or tarpaulin in your boot to hold your seedlings.
When you apply, you will immediately get an email confirming your date, time and reference number for your collection. You will need this number to get your seedlings.
If you do not receive your confirmation email, you may have mistyped your email address. Please email the freetrees@swan.wa.gov.au address to let us know.
By including your mobile number in the application form you will also receive an SMS before your collection reminding you of your collection date, time and reference number.
If you have previously nominated swan@swan.wa.gov.au email address as a SPAM email, you will not receive your confirmation. We suggest that residents ensure they have this email selected as an authorised email.
This will help with traffic demands for the urban collection days and the need for more parking facilities for the rural collection days. Seedling packs will be moved from the nursery to the Operations Centre before each collection day.
Information on the traffic management plan will be updated on the City’s website closer to the event.
Rural residents will have one collection day on Saturday, May 31, 2025, with a park-and-collect method of distribution. Residents will be able to select their preferred collection window during the application process.
Urban resident collection will run over three days on Saturday, June 7, Sunday, June 8 and Saturday June 14, 2025. You can select your preferred collection date and time slot when applying online.
This will be a direct-to-boot distribution using the drive-in and drive-out system, as per previous years. We ask that you have a cardboard box or tarpaulin in your boot to hold your seedlings.
When you apply, you will immediately get an email confirming your date, time and reference number for your collection. You will need this number to get your seedlings.
If you do not receive your confirmation email, you may have mistyped your email address. Please email the freetrees@swan.wa.gov.au address to let us know.
By including your mobile number in the application form you will also receive an SMS before your collection reminding you of your collection date, time and reference number.
If you have previously nominated swan@swan.wa.gov.au email address as a SPAM email, you will not receive your confirmation. We suggest that residents ensure they have this email selected as an authorised email.
If you are not able to collect on your selected day and time, you can nominate someone (a relative, neighbour to collect on your behalf). As long as they have your reference number, they will be able to collect your seedlings for you.
For those residents who do not collect their seedlings on their allocated day and time, there will only be one more opportunity for collection. You will have a second chance to collect your pack on Sunday, June 15, 2025 between 8am and 11am from the City of Swan Operations Centre, 212 Great Northern Highway, Middle Swan.
If you do not collect your packs on this day, they will be given to residents on the waitlist.
For those residents who do not collect their seedlings on their allocated day and time, there will only be one more opportunity for collection. You will have a second chance to collect your pack on Sunday, June 15, 2025 between 8am and 11am from the City of Swan Operations Centre, 212 Great Northern Highway, Middle Swan.
If you do not collect your packs on this day, they will be given to residents on the waitlist.
No. The trees and plants are seedlings and tube stocks and can be easily accommodated in a cardboard box in your car boot.