Everyone from individuals to Scout and Girlguiding groups, villages, cities, counties, school and corporates are encouraged to plant trees from October 2021 when the tree planting season begins, through to the end of the Jubilee year in 2022.
The Queen’s Green Canopy aims to encourage everyone to learn more about the best way to plant trees so that they survive and flourish for years to come.
A special interactive map has been created to track the Jubilee tree plantings on the QGC website so that everyone can share and inspire others, as well as creating a green canopy of projects to cover the country.
How else will the QGC celebrate the Platinum Jubilee?
Throughout Her reign, The Queen has planted more than 1,500 trees all over the world and has spoken alongside Sir David Attenborough of the importance of trees in the Earth’s future.
As well as inviting the planting of new trees, The Queen’s Green Canopy will highlight 70 unique and irreplaceable Ancient Woodlands across the United Kingdom and identify 70 Ancient Trees to celebrate Her Majesty’s 70 years of service.
The QGC project will also create a pilot training programme for unemployed young people aged between 16-24 through Capel Manor College, London’s only specialist environmental college of which The Queen Mother was Patron, to plant and manage trees.
Schoolchildren across the UK will be encouraged to work towards their Junior Forester Award which will teach them more about the world of trees, and how they can help them thrive, and will give them an insight into the skills needed for a career in forestry.
Trees planted by members of the Royal Family
The Queen joined The Prince of Wales for the first Jubilee tree planting in the grounds of Windsor Castle in Spring 2021, during the tree planting season, to mark the launch of the initiative.
The tree planted was a ‘Verdun Oak’ (Quercus petraea) and was propagated by the Savill Garden team at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in 2019. Verdun trees are oak and horse chestnut trees, planted in the United Kingdom in the aftermath of the First World War. Acorns and chestnuts were collected from trees on the battlefield at Verdun, and sent to England to be distributed and planted as war memorials.
To mark the official start of the new tree planting season on 1 October 2021, Her Majesty and His Royal Highness welcomed local schoolchildren to the Balmoral Estate for the planting of a copper beech.
