About the pilot
For decades, councils, charities and other organisations have given away bundles of young trees for free to residents, community groups, schools and businesses. These schemes have distributed trees at scale, however, their effectiveness at establishing trees was unknown as survival rates were not routinely monitored.
To understand their effectiveness, we carried out a trial that was designed to also investigate whether asking applicants to pay a portion of the cost of the trees would influence their survival.
Learning
Tree schemes, whether free or subsidised, are a great way to distribute and establish trees across a local authority at relatively low cost. Some of the trees planted have only been in the ground for two years, so we can’t yet be completely sure which method ultimately results in the best survival rates, but our data so far shows that subsidised trees have higher survival rates.
The common motivation for people planting trees was for wildlife, this came out strongly across each location. This shows a knowledge of and commitment to providing trees for habitat and biodiversity.
“I’ve been lucky enough to live here all my life. If I can help in any way to swing the balance back to nature then I’m all in. It’s for my kids and hopefully grandchildren.”
Recipient of a tree bundle through the scheme
Pilot outputs
Next steps
Supporting information
Resources:
Website links:
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