“Community tree nurseries are invaluable,” says Jackie Shallcross, a project lead for Trees Outside Woodlands at The Tree Council. “They produce high-quality tree stock often growing species which are local or rare.”

Run almost-entirely by volunteers, these enterprises are a focus of the Trees Outside Woodlands project, a partnership between Defra, Natural England, and The Tree Council, which seeks to increase the number of trees across the UK in a bid to address both climate and ecological emergencies.

Research into community tree nurseries

In 2022 the first major research survey about community tree nurseries was conducted by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), The Tree Council and Forest Research as part of the Trees Outside Woodlands programme.

Researchers found that there were approximately 80 community tree nurseries across the UK, and that there was an appetite for more. It was estimated that these nurseries grew an astonishing 250,000 trees a year which were either given away or sold at a minimal cost.

Now researchers are looking to find out how the sector has developed in the last few years and are calling on tree growing champions to take part in the latest survey.

“We’re looking for community tree nursery managers or volunteers in the UK to take part in the survey,” says researcher, Dr Sarah Pohlschneider. “We want to find out more about how community tree nurseries are developing and what challenges and opportunities they are facing.”

The results will give governing bodies valuable insights into how best they can support community tree nurseries to flourish in the future.

Take part in the survey

Can you help? Please take part in, and/or share, the survey.

Respondents will be in with a chance of winning a National Garden Gift Voucher worth £100, which is accepted in over 1,000 garden centres across the UK.

The survey closes on Monday 28 October 2024.

For the purpose of this survey, community tree nurseries are defined as an enterprise, social enterprise, community-based group, charitable or public sector endeavour or network where volunteer community members and groups take part in growing trees, including seed/wilding collection, nursery management and sales/distribution, and also in some cases planting out.