For many volunteers and landholders in the Boorowa district, 2019 marks the 20th year of the 'Building Bridges to Boorowa' program.
For two decades, the collaboration between the Boorowa Community Landcare Group and North Sydney Bushcare has seen many thousands of trees planted with stimulating and enduring friendships fostered.
For the 2019 planting, 39 volunteers cheerfully planted 4400 tube stock, mostly Eucalyptus trees and wattles on four properties around Boorowa.
Recognising the aesthetic benefit of the program were mayor of North Sydney Council, Councillor Jilly Gibson and mayor of Hilltops Council Councillor Brian Ingram.
Together they assured the continuity of the project by jointly signing a memorandum of understanding, which is intended to support the tree planting weekend for a further five years.
"It's natural for us to keep that collaboration and cooperation going," Cr Ingram said.
Also on hand to plant trees were local members of parliament, Felicity Wilson member for North Shore and Wendy Tuckerman, member for Goulburn.
One recipient of the plantings were Peter, Elizabeth and Richard Mason.
The family has been involved from the inception of the project and Mrs Mason said the help of the North Sydney Bushcare volunteers has been astonishing.
"We used to do it all ourselves, I even started propagating my own trees," she said.
"This collaboration is wonderful because we wouldn't be able to get all this done if we didn't have all these volunteers from Sydney."
One of those volunteers, Lynn Holliday has been to Boorowa a few times since she joined North Sydney Bushcare 14 years ago.
Hailing from New Zealand and now retired, Ms Holliday said the annual trips to Boorowa have given her the chance to re-connect with rural areas and at the same time close the gap between country and city.
"It was just bliss to be in the outdoors, doing something that has enormous value, but also gave me a degree of satisfaction, a pleasure to see how much good it is doing environmentally," she said.
Other landholders included Suzanne Kelly, Andrew and Michelle Southwell and Ben and Toyha Johnson.