Green Hustle, in partnership with Trees for Cities, are embarking on their biggest-ever tree-planting project in November and December 2023.
They’re calling for dozens of volunteers to come and help get the trees planted.
This project has been made possible thanks to funding from Trees for Cities.
Trees for Cities gets involved with local communities right across the country, to cultivate lasting change in local neighbourhoods – whether it’s revitalising forgotten spaces, creating healthier environments or getting people excited about growing, foraging and eating healthy food.
Dubbed Twenty Twenty Tree, it set out to plant at least 2,023 trees in 2023 to beat last year’s Green Hustle tree planting total of 1,500 trees. Twenty Twenty Tree will see an additional 2,150 trees planted across three sites in Bulwell, Beechdale and Aspley.
Twenty Twenty Tree aims to connect people with local nature, especially young people, children, families and people living in the chosen areas. It also aims to create volunteering opportunities for long-term engagement with nature, improvement in air quality of the city, flood resilience and reduction of heat in the city during heatwaves and more places for people to go to stay cool.
Tree canopy cover in Nottingham is around 13.7% which is below the minimum level of 20% cover for urban areas in the UK recommended by Forest Research. The
Dates and sites for the planting are as follows:
- Saturday 25 November – Radford Bridge Road, Beechdale, creating a woodland copse of 350 trees
- Saturday 2 December – Amesbury Circus, Aspley, where 500 trees will be planted
- Friday 15 and Saturday 16 December – Bulwell Hall Park where 1,300 new trees will be planted in organically shaped pockets to encourage natural regeneration in a complimentary way to the current woodland.
All trees will be a wide mix of British native species to offer as much human and nature benefit as possible, and will be complemented with additional planting such as wildflowers to boost biodiversity.
Green Hustle are a Nottingham city-based community interest company, that also runs its own festival in Nottingham’s Old Market Square and is part of a broader family of festivals which includes Hockley Hustle, and Young Hustlers. Green Hustle have already planted 2,600 trees in the past three years, bringing the total to 4,750 by the end of 2023.
Adam Pickering, Co-Director at Green Hustle said:
“We’re really excited to launch our biggest-ever tree planting drive, which will cover more ground than ever, planting full-sized, traditional woodland.
“In the past, it’s been our Miyawaki mini forest on Woodthorpe Park, and our Hedgerow Heroes project with CPRE, which involve much more densely planted trees. Twenty Twenty Tree will see large-scale forest creation and an unprecedented amount of new woodland which will last long into the future”.
Roddy Show, Development Manager at Trees for Cities says: “Trees for Cities is delighted to be supporting Green Hustle with their Twenty Twenty Tree planting aims! The last few summers have seen record-breaking temperatures across the UK, so it is fantastic to see this level of community drive to help plant trees and ensure urban residents are coming together to build resilience against the threats of climate change”.
With 80% of the population living in towns or cities, many people now breathe dirty air, are at risk of flooding and are struggling with rising temperatures worsened by the urban heat-island effect. Without urban trees, our physical and mental health are all affected, and our connection with nature becomes lost. By planting thousands of urban trees each year in the UK and around the world, Trees for Cities is building resilience within urban communities against threats facing the natural environment.
Volunteers can get involved with the project by signing up here.
