Street Trees and Canopy: What Advanced Stock Costs and Who Holds It

Every capital city has a canopy target, and every target is met one tree at a time by a grower who potted a seedling on five years earlier. The idea that matters most is that the trees a council plants on a street, 100 litres and larger, come from a small number of growers in three states, that the same handful of species dominates what they grow at that size, and that the price of a tree at the farm gate is the smallest part of what it costs to put it in the ground and keep it alive. A canopy plan that does not start with the nursery is a plan for tubestock.

This page takes the advanced-tree story from the HortOS Plant Price Index, September 2026, and sets it out as a standing reference: which trees the trade grows for streets and parks, what a 45 litre, 100 litre and 200 litre tree costs at the farm gate, how many growers in each state hold advanced stock, why the lead times are what they are, and what a council pays for a street tree against what a giveaway costs. It draws on the Australian Standard for tree stock, AS 2303, as described by NATSPEC and by Trees Impact, on the City of Melbourne's urban forest strategy, and on the street tree cost model published by YIMBY Melbourne from Living Melbourne's analysis. It summarises what they say and is not a substitute for a specification.

Quick facts

Who holds the big trees	Growers with 100 litre or larger stock on their current list, September 2026 Index: New South Wales 79, Queensland 49, Victoria 49; South Australia 5, Western Australia 4, Tasmania 2, the ACT 2, the Northern Territory 1.
What they cost	National median trade price ex GST, September 2026 Index: 45 L $120, 100 L $295, 200 L $650. The same tree in a 140 mm pot, the giveaway size, has a median of $7.00.
What they grow	The same five or six species dominate at 100 L: the Teddy Bear and Little Gem magnolias, tuckeroo, the Tuscarora and Natchez crepe myrtles, weeping lilly pilly and the Capital ornamental pear.
The target	The City of Melbourne aims to lift canopy cover from 22 per cent to 40 per cent by 2040, with no more than five per cent of one species, ten per cent of one genus or 20 per cent of one family.
The whole cost	YIMBY Melbourne's model puts a standard street tree at $1,113 to establish and $2,654 over 30 years of maintenance; the tree itself is a few hundred dollars of that.
Lead time	A 100 L tree is four to five years from cutting or seed, a 200 L tree five to seven; AS 2303 sets what it must look like above and below ground when it arrives.

The targets, and the bottleneck behind them

The City of Melbourne's urban forest strategy commits the council to increasing canopy cover from 22 per cent to 40 per cent by 2040 and to a diversity rule of no more than five per cent of any one tree species, ten per cent of any one genus and 20 per cent of any one family. Other capitals and most metropolitan councils have targets of their own, and Greener Spaces Better Places, the Hort Innovation site funded by the nursery levy, has published three national studies of canopy by local government area under the titles Where are all the trees, Where will all the trees be and Where should all the trees go.

The supply side is narrower than the targets suggest. The HortOS Plant Price Index for September 2026 counted the growers with any 100 litre or larger line on their current list: 79 in New South Wales, 49 in Queensland, 49 in Victoria, and 14 in the rest of the country together. A grower counts once if any line on its list is 100 L, 200 L, 400 L or ex-ground. Those are the growers a council, a developer or a tree program can buy an advanced tree from this season, and the Index found that the same five or six species dominate what they grow at that size. A diversity rule that caps any species at five per cent of a city's trees runs straight into a trade that grows a few species in volume and everything else in ones and twos.

Signature Trees grows ex-ground advanced trees on two Queensland farms, one in the highlands near Toowoomba and one in the wet tropics near Innisfail, and sells them as individually chosen specimens. When a tree that size travels further than a truck, Ornatec International describes how mature trees are lifted, moved and re-established.

What the trade grows for streets and parks

The table lists the trees held at advanced sizes by the most growers, with the number of growers holding each at 100 litres or larger on their current list and the median trade price ex GST at 45 L, 100 L and 200 L as printed on the live price pages on 24 September 2026, one price per grower, resellers and website prices excluded, with the number of growers pricing that size in brackets. Palms and other trees priced by height are left out, as the Index leaves them out. The 100 L medians match the Index table for September 2026; the 45 L and 200 L medians are the live pages' own.

Two things stand out. The list is mostly exotic: magnolias, crepe myrtles, ornamental pears, a maple, a pin oak, a zelkova and a jacaranda, with tuckeroo, weeping lilly pilly, the Queensland bottle tree, water gum, the flame tree and a lilly pilly the native exceptions. And the price ladder is steep and consistent: a 45 L tree sits near $100 to $125, a 100 L tree near $250 to $380, and a 200 L tree from $525 to $1,100, so each step up buys roughly the cost of the steps below it again. The pot sizes guide explains the ladder and the years behind each rung.

What a council pays for, and what a giveaway costs

A street tree and a giveaway tree are different products from the same grower. The September 2026 Index puts the national median at $7.00 for a 140 mm pot, the size a council hands out at a plant giveaway, and $120 for 45 L, $295 for 100 L and $650 for 200 L, the sizes it plants on a street. A thousand giveaway trees are a plant bill of a few thousand dollars; a thousand street trees at 100 L are a plant bill near $300,000 ex GST before the hole is dug.

And the plant is the cheap part. YIMBY Melbourne's street tree cost model, built from the 2023 analysis Living Melbourne commissioned using Hort Innovation's tree costing tool, puts the establishment cost of a standard street tree planting at $1,113, annual maintenance at $49.50, and the cost per tree over 30 years at $2,654; a rain garden planting establishes at $4,461 and runs to $6,646. In that model the tree at the farm gate is a tenth of the lifetime cost, and the difference between a 45 L and a 100 L tree is a rounding error against the pit, the soil, the guard, the watering and the pruning. That is the case for buying the larger tree where it will survive, and for buying the smaller one, in quantity, where it will be watered.

Why the lead times are long

A 100 litre tree is four to five years old and a 200 litre tree five to seven; the years are the reason the price doubles at each rung and the reason a grower cannot answer a tender for five hundred trees of a species it did not pot on in 2022. The Australian Standard for tree stock, AS 2303, sets what an advanced tree must be when it arrives. Trees Impact, which explains the standard, describes its three sections: criteria for the tree above ground, including height and calliper, crown symmetry, stem taper, whether it is self-supporting, formative pruning and included bark; criteria for the tree below ground, including root ball diameter and depth, root crown height, root ball occupancy, root direction and root division; and a balance assessment between the two, built on a Size Index of height in metres multiplied by calliper in millimetres, with a preferred range for each container size. NATSPEC publishes the guide behind the standard, Specifying Trees, as guidance for the supplying and purchasing of trees that will establish rapidly and grow strongly to maturity, with criteria for assessing all tree stock irrespective of how it is produced, benchmarks and calculations, and a guide specification.

Growing a tree to that standard cannot be hurried, which is why the trade sells advanced stock two ways: from the list, where the plant page shows what a grower holds today, and by forward order, where a council or contractor books trees a season or more ahead and the grower grows them on. NATSPEC's landscape worksections include a plant procurement worksection that allows plant material to be supplied as a separate forward order contract ahead of the head contract, which is the mechanism a canopy program with a diversity rule needs: the species the trade does not grow in volume have to be ordered before they exist.

Where the growers are

The state hubs for New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria list the growers by town, and each plant page shows who holds a tree at each size with the date the list was updated. The Index's plant capitals, 35 growers within 12 kilometres of Dural, 32 around Monbulk and 23 around Somerville, are where most advanced stock sits; a buyer in South Australia, Western Australia or Tasmania is usually buying across a border, with the quarantine conditions that brings.

What to watch for

• Specifying a size that is not grown. The 100 L medians on this page rest on 15 growers or fewer per species; a species outside the table may be held by one grower or none at that size.
• Pricing the tree and not the planting. The tree is a fraction of the lifetime cost; the budget line that fails a canopy target is watering, not purchase.
• Buying a pot, not a tree. A 100 L label is a container; AS 2303 assessment, height and calliper are what a specification should call up.
• Ordering in the planting season. Advanced trees for a winter program were potted on years before. A tender in April buys what is on the list.
• Treating the diversity rule as a nursery problem. It is a forward order problem: the uncommon species exist in five years if someone orders them now.

Getting it right

1. Settle the species list against the canopy strategy's diversity rule and the site, then check each species' plant page for who holds it at the size you need.
2. Check the median at 45 L, 100 L and 200 L on the price pages before the estimate, and test a quote with the price check.
3. Specify AS 2303 assessment, height and calliper, not a container size alone, and inspect the stock at the nursery before it ships.
4. Forward order the species the trade does not hold in volume, a season or more ahead, under a procurement worksection.
5. Budget the planting and 30 years of care with the tree, and choose the size by where it will be watered, not by what looks best on planting day.

A word of caution

The medians on this page are aggregates of growers' published lists on one date; the live price pages change as lists arrive, so a figure there may differ from the September 2026 edition. The cost model quoted is YIMBY Melbourne's reading of Living Melbourne's analysis, not a council's budget. AS 2303 is a paid standard, described here and not reproduced; a tree contract needs the specifier and an assessor. On stock, sizes and dispatch dates, the grower's word is the one that counts.

Sources

• City of Melbourne, Urban Forest Strategy: the canopy target and diversity rule.
• Greener Spaces Better Places, where should all the trees go: national canopy studies.
• YIMBY Melbourne, selecting and costing street trees: establishment and 30-year costs.
• Trees Impact, AS 2303 explained: the standard's three sections and Size Index.
• NATSPEC, Specifying Trees: the guide behind AS 2303.
• NATSPEC, worksection abstracts: the plant procurement worksection.
• Standards Australia, AS 2303:2018: tree stock for landscape use.