A passion for planting trees

Dave is a regular face at our planting days, so we ask him how it all began; “I moved to London from Anglesey in 1994, and had been doing various charity and conservation work around London. I’d often walk past more sort of deprived areas and think ‘that would be a nice place for trees’, which fits in with what Trees for Cities does.”

Dave learned about our work from an article, back when the charity was called Trees for London. He attended his first planting day in March of 2000 - and has been planting trees with us ever since!

What's changed over the years?

“The Trees for Cities staff are getting younger,” laughs Dave, “the events are more organised, still great fun though. The main thing for me is that we’re still doing the planting days and we’re creating a legacy. And now after 24 seasons I can go back to woodlands that I’ve planted and see them getting used by urban populations.”

And what a legacy that is. Thanks to Dave and all our fantastic volunteers, we’re on set to plant our 2 millionth tree.

As a seasoned planter, we asked Dave for his sage advice for someone new to planting trees.

“Take your time, enjoy it, and don’t try to plant everything. Plant it properly and plant it well, because it's better to get 10 trees in properly then trying to attempt 100 but not done well.”

Fantastic advice! Whilst we love a productive planting day, we choose quality over quantity, because a well planted whip grows into a happy tree.

Inspiring others

Dave had one last story to share:

“One of the best people I met was a gentleman from Wembley. He was quite a well-to-do man, expensive looking jacket. Our group had just finished a pep talk and we were planting standards (5-7 year old trees). He asked me what we were doing and I said planting trees and that. And he asked how much we got paid? And I said we don’t get paid, we do it for the community.

He told me he’d been a refugee, come to the UK in 1972 and had left with nothing and worked hard to get where he was now. So he was a bit suspicious. I said we have a team, we get a free lunch, and it's great fun with the local community - but he’s still a bit bemused.

I decided to tell him about a tree planting initiative in the United States that showed that a tree line street increases your house price anywhere from 7-15%.

So I left him with that thought and went off to get a cup of tea and when I came back, he was kneeling in the mud, shirt sleeves rolled up, his sports jacket on my spade, asking where the next tree was going.”

Feeling inspired too?

If you’re keen to get involved with our planting days to see what all the fuss is about, check out this page for upcoming events.

Interested to read more volunteer case studies? Click here to read why Sam keeps coming back year after year to volunteer!