A leading delivery partner of The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC), the Woodland Trust is offering free trees as an amazing opportunity to help many thousands of schools and communities to plant trees to mark Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022.

Across 2021 and 2022, there will be over three million free saplings available on a first come first served basis. Packs are sent out twice a year. Orders should be placed before 25 August for delivery in November. The Trust welcomes applications from all types of community groups and people do not have to be part of a formal long-standing group, they just need to have a group name decided before they apply.

Whether planting for The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, to help tackle climate change, or to improve local areas around the country, you can order your free tree pack today. In spring the uptake was high with over 400,000 trees sent to keen planters across the country: the South West received 64,950 trees with 4,995 going to 64 organisations in Dorset.

The packs, all generously funded by corporate partners, are available in a range of themes; year-long colour, a wild harvest, or a haven for wildlife. Another contains hardy species which tolerate exposed sites and dry areas or where water collects easily, there is even a working wood mix which could provide wood fuel or willow for weaving.

They also come in a range of sizes; 15 (perfect for urban areas and which can be split between neighbours where necessary), 30 (which will create a six-metre hedgerow or a tennis court-sized copse), 105 (enough to cover an area as big as four tennis courts) or 420 (to cover an area the size of a football pitch) and most can create fantastic hedgerows.

The Woodland Trust asks that trees are planted on publicly accessible land where possible, with the landowner’s permission, and that groups commit to caring for those trees as they establish and grow. Since 2004 the scheme has helped thousands of groups plant millions of trees and there is support for experienced and first- time tree planters.

Senior project lead for the Woodland Trust Vicki Baddeley said: “We’re always amazed by the appetite schools and communities have for tree planting. It is such a wonderful thing to do. It is a positive, life-affirming and life-changing action that people can take to mark momentous occasions like The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, to help tackle the climate and nature crises, or to make their local areas a bit greener. We find that once people have planted one tree, they usually want to do more.

“All the trees planted have a host of different benefits working hard to lock up carbon, improve soils and water, reduce the flow of flooding, provide shade and shelter, create havens for wildlife and a places to enjoy.”

Woodland Trust tree packs are generously funded by lead partners Sainsbury’s, Lloyds Bank, OVO Energy, DFS Furniture, players of People’s Postcode Lottery, Joules, Bank of Scotland and Sofology.

Packs contain a mix of UK sourced and grown native broadleaf species such as hazel, rowan, hawthorn, common oak, silver birch, wild cherry, elder, dogwood and holly.

To order free trees visit  www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/freetrees  before  August 25 and they’ll be delivered in November 2021. 

All the trees are UK and Ireland Sourced-and-Grown (UKISG). Responsible tree procurement is central to developing resilient woodlands.