Often National Tree Day at the end of July provides a motive for groups and individuals to plant native trees in public areas.
But Warragul Friends of Trees group this year took a different tack that may add years to the life of an historic tree in the town that is believed to have been planted more than 140 years ago.
According to the friends group the commonly called a "Lilly of the Valley" tree was planted alongside a walking path in Anderson St to what was then Warragul's main park in Burke St.
It is believed to have been donated by Baron von Mueller in the late 1870s when he worked for the Victorian Colonial Department of Botany to provide some shelter and a rest area for train passengers waiting for their steam trains to be attended to and restocked with fuel for the furnaces.
Over recent decades the tree's trunks, branches and surrounds were overtaken by ivy and the friends group decided it would be an appropriate project for National Tree Day to get rid of the ivy and expose to view once again the tree's "beautiful trunks and bark".
Members of Warragul croquet club, whose boundary runs next to the tree, also chipped in to help.
Baw Baw Shire council came to the party with a truck load of mulch and wood chips to tidy up the area and took away some two-and-half truckloads of ivy and other vegetation that had overtaken the surrounds.