A SHINFIELD nursery teamed up with a village care home to help launch celebrations for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
To help mark the 70th anniversary of her majesty’s reign, a call has been made for schools and community groups to plant more than three million trees across the country.
The scheme, called The Queen’s Green Canopy, has been devised by the Prince of Wales, working with groups including The Woodland Trust. It is designed to leave a legacy in memory of the longest-serving monarch in British history that will last for many generations to come.
The tree planting seasons run from October through to March, and again from October next year through to New Year 2023: the optimum times for the new arrivals to take root and flourish.
In Shinfield, Shinfield View residents helped Honey Suckle Day Nursery to plant a tree within its grounds. They also visited Shinfield Infants School and St Mary’s School.
The project has been supported by The Berkeley Care Group and Freely Fruity, which runs community orchards in the borough, distributing the harvests to groups in need. This has included a Helping Hands Shinfield and a foodbank run and administered by Shinfield Baptist Church.
Jodie Whatmore, Shinfield View’s general manager, and Laura McSoley, events manager at the School Green home, said that it had been really great for the residents to get in to the local community and join forces for such a special occasion.
“The project that we are working towards is planting as many new trees in our community this October to be able to revisit and see how much they have grown next year for the Queen’s Jubilee,” they said.
“We could not have done this without the kind donations from the charity Freely Fruity, who have given us baby apple trees to plant so we haven’t just got new trees into the community but also fruit which is amazing.
“A big thank you to one of the co-founders of this charity, Matthew Knight, who came along to help dig the holes and a huge thank you to all the children who got involved and rolled up their sleeves to dig and get them in the ground last week.
“This initiative will not only celebrate the Queen’s long reign but also have a positive impact on the environment and help to counter the damaging effects of climate change.”
The Woodland Trust is one of the groups welcoming applications for other groups to take part in The Queen’s Green Canopy. It is offering packs of trees that can support neighbours, restore hedgerows, and see an area such as a tennis court covered. Its largest pack would be 420 trees, which would cover an area the size of a football pitch.
Packs can be themed for a year-long harvest, a wild harvest and a haven for wildlife. Another pack would include working wood mixes: trees that could provide wood fuel, or willow for weaving.
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.
“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 places to enjoy.”
For more details, log on to queensgreencanopy.org
