400 trees
Exciting news!
In celebration of our 400th Anniversary, Oxford Botanic Garden ran a campaign to plant 400 trees around Oxfordshire to create positive, long lasting change. Since the start of the 400 Trees campaign in October 2020, we have partnered up with local and UK-wide initiatives to reach our goal, including the Community Action Group ‘Harvest@Home’. We are proud to say that we have now exceeded our target.
On 20 April 2021, Harvest@Home received 420 fruit and nut trees from the Woodland Trust. In order to provide ‘food security from the ground up’ to support vulnerable families, a large number of trees were planted in community gardens and playgrounds in Kidlington, and handed out to people across Oxfordshire.
Friends of the Botanic Garden and Arboretum, John Brimble and Jenny Atkinson, have helped too. They planted 100 trees alongside local volunteers at Hinksey Heights Nature Trail. Now, visitors can enjoy the trees and hopefully, soon, pick the fruits of their labour.
How to plant a tree?
Oxford Botanic Garden doesn’t want to stop there and would love to encourage you to plant a tree! The Garden and Harvest@Home have created resources to help you collect tree seeds during the autumn and stratify tree seeds. See our guide here.
If you have a young tree, Tila from Harvest@Home has created a video to show how to plant a tree. These videos also touch upon various fruit and nut tree species you can plant in your own garden to attract wildlife such as birds — or to make your own ‘wild rowan jelly!’
Help to keep track of our records
Once you have planted a tree, we would like to keep track of the number and species of tree. Please record the tree(s) you have planted on this webpage.
No space? No problem.
If you‘re unable to plant a tree in your own garden, please contact Harvest@Home via harvestathomeuk@gmail.com and they will find space for you in one of their community gardens or more locally if possible.
Thank you ever so much for your support. We hope to show that it is simple to plant a tree, but makes a -lasting impact.
We hope to plant more trees with you!
