On a mission; tree planting season gets underway again in Buckinghamshire
National Tree Week begins on Saturday (23 Nov) making it the ideal time to mark the tree planting season.
Buckinghamshire Council will be kicking off with over 4,000 trees being planted near Winslow and Great Horwood; this new woodland will be named Roddimore Wood.
Weather permitting, the 4,625 new trees will be planted before Christmas. Species include native Black Poplar, Oak, Eared Willow, and Blackthorn which is particularly beneficial to brown hairstreak butterfly larvae.
Tree planting is one of the ways in which the council is working towards its goal of reducing its carbon emissions by 75% by 2030, on the way to achieving net-zero no later than 2050, as part of the Climate Change and Air Quality Strategy.
Other new woodlands we will be creating this planting season include Isle of Wight Wood in Gerrards Cross, Innisfree Wood in Great Missenden, Huntsmoor Park Wood in Iver and Lower Munt’s Wood in Saunderton. We are also planning to plant another of our ‘Tiny Forests’ in Desborough.
Local schools and communities are getting involved by volunteering to help with our tree planting mission including planting the Desborough Tiny Forest with pupils from Millbrook Combined School.
Thomas Broom, Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change, said: “I’m delighted that it’s tree planting season again and we have plans in place for planting more trees in Buckinghamshire over the coming months. Tree planting is one of the most important ways we are working to reduce carbon emissions in Buckinghamshire. Trees enhance our environment, help biodiversity, create more space for nature to grow and thrive, and improve public health and wellbeing.
“It’s also great fun to get involved with the tree planting and spend time in nature. So I would encourage everyone to keep an eye out for details of volunteer days at our sites, and also to find out how you could plant trees in your local community.”
Billet Field Wood, the council’s first woodland that was planted in early 2022 near Black Park Country Park, has just been ‘validated’ under the UK Carbon Code. This means the amount of carbon being offset by the new trees has been put into ‘units’ to offset against the council’s own carbon emissions on the road to net zero.