Mangrove forests provide important ecosystem services, but have been extensively cleared and converted globally. In these degraded ecosystems, restoration projects suffer low success rates due to fundamental knowledge gaps. Among these gaps are assessments of the potential facilitative effects of adult mangroves, which are absent at many restoration sites, but which may be important for facilitating establishment of juvenile mangroves. I tested for evidence of establishment facilitation by surveying juvenile mangrove abundance around adult trees at three sites on the western coast of Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island), Australia. At the sheltered southern site, adult roots facilitated directional establishment around isolated sea-front trees; juvenile mangroves were densest on the lee side of these trees, where wind-wave conditions were attenuated by the trunk and roots. At the two northerly sites, wind and wave energy were higher and juvenile establishment was reduced, and only occurred around adult trees within the forest fringe, rather than those in isolated positions. My results provide evidence for facilitative interactions between adult trees and juvenile mangroves which can be used to underpin models of mangrove forest development. Enhanced knowledge of facultative interactions is critical to understanding potential establishment, recruitment and forest growth on mangrove coastlines.