A green canopy for a platinum celebration
Planting trees for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee has reached the halfway point and is being hailed a success
ON the last day of the official tree planting season, which runs from October to March, Her Majesty The Queen has sent a message to thank people all over the United Kingdom who have come together to plant over a million Jubilee trees in her name.
With a focus on planting sustainably, Her Majesty’s message marks the halfway point for the Queen’s Green Canopy initiative which spans two official tree planting seasons. Tree planting will commence again in October, through until the end of the Jubilee year.
The Queen and Prince Charles, Duke of Cornwall, who is Patron of the Queen’s Green Canopy, marked the start of the official planting season for the scheme on 1st October 2021, with the planting of a copper beech tree on the Balmoral Estate.
Since then, thousands of families, schools and community groups have come together to plant Jubilee trees across the country to create a canopy of green in The Queen’s name, as a tribute to Her Majesty’s 70 years of service to the nation. Projects in the Westcountry have included tree planting at Nansledan, near Newquay, the Duchy of Cornwall new town devised by Prince Charles.
The projects are proudly showcased on The Queen’s Green Canopy map, from the stunning Scottish Highlands to the breath-taking Giant’s Causeway, over to Merthyr Tydfil in the Welsh Valleys, across to Birmingham in the very heart of England, and vibrant urban greening throughout London. To give people time to upload their planting projects, the QGC Map will close for new submissions at the end of April and will open again at the start of the planting season on 1st October 2022.
To bring the first planting season to a close, The Countess of Wessex yesterday planted an elm tree in the garden at Buckingham Palace with students from Grange Park Primary in Shropshire. The students were presented with special commemorative Jubilee coins from the Royal Mint, to mark the successful completion of their QGC RFS Junior Forester Award.
With planting paused until October,
Thousands of families, schools and community groups have come together to plant Jubilee trees across the country
The Queen’s Green Canopy will move into a conservation phase, to unveil 70 Ancient Woodlands and 70 Ancient Trees. As quintessential features of the UK’s much-loved landscapes, Ancient Woodlands are often referred to as nature’s “crown jewels”.
In the first planting season, from October 2021 to March 2022, the project has inspired over a million trees to be planted.
With The Prince of Wales as its active Patron, the QGC is generating the planting of large celebration trees, new majestic avenues, urban planting and expansive new forests that will benefit generations to come.
Those behind the project say it aims to have high quality legacy planting in every county of the UK, with community engagement and best practice at its heart and an emphasis on making a difference in some of the most deprived areas in the UK.
A Champion Cities programme has also been launched to celebrate some of the nation’s outstanding cities which have trees and woodland as a central part of their plans for green spaces. UK cities which have been awarded QGC ‘Champion’ status so far include Aberdeen, Bath, Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Chester, Derby, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Greater Manchester, Leicester, London, Newcastle, Perth, Preston, Southampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Swansea, Worcester and York.
The QGC is working with schools and nearly 40,000 primary school children have signed up to the QGC RFS Junior Forester’s Award, which aims to give children and young people of all ages an insight into the skills needed for a career in forestry, as well as equipping them with the practical ability to assist in woodland management in their schools and local communities.
The Royal Mint is gifting Platinum Jubilee commemorative coins to the first 7,000 children who complete the Award.
In addition, the QGC has launched a special training programme to teach unemployed young people new skills in tree planting and management in England and Wales.
The QGC will dedicate a UK-wide network of 70 Ancient Woodlands that will demonstrate to the wider public the importance of the UK’s Ancient Woodlands in terms of their natural and social history and ecology. The dedication of 70 Ancient Trees for the QGC will be the start of a larger project to propagate material from many of the UK’s most important Ancient Trees, to ensure that their genetic resource is conserved.