It's hot and dirty.
Pete Lyon is singing and strumming Get Togetherness on his guitar.
Dressed in sexy bucket hats and gardening gloves, sweaty singles mingle, barley able to keep their plants to themselves.
Shovels go in holes, and seeds are sowed.
No wonder so many of the volunteers at Saturday's Landcare4Singles event in Gordon are smiling.
Grouped by age, volunteers swapped planting partners every 10 minutes. After the 600 trees were rooted, love birds communed for lunch on hay bales.
Policy adviser Michaela Real, 33, wanted to branch out from dating apps.
"I love being out in nature," she said.
"[And] it's nice meeting people in person first, like the good old days."
The event was a good opportunity to see if love - or at least friendship - could bloom, 50-year-old Nikki Hogan said.
"I don't do a lot of the normal dating world, and I've been busy with work [and] caring responsibilities," she said.
"[This is] more of a natural environment to be in, and with like-minded people."
The seed-dating event has been running in the ACT since the 1990s, and organisers are aware of at least three marriages (and one divorce).
Public servants Ellye Yates, 35 and Attila Fogarasi, 42, had such a fern time chatting, they plant on sticking it out for another date.
"I'm pretty passionate about Canberra, and I just love to get involved in making the city [what it] deserves to be," Mr Fogarasi said.
Beyond love, eucalyptus, wattles and banksia were also in the air, after being planted by volunteers on the hillside in Canberra's south, organiser Jeni Cumberland said.
"We hope that they've found someone special, but we also help that they've made a connection with the landscape," she said.
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