Trees of time and place

Citation

(2000), "Trees of time and place", Nutrition & Food Science, Vol. 30 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/nfs.2000.01730daf.005

Trees of time and place

Trees of time and place

To celebrate the start of the new millennium, a great many people are looking for a simple, sustainable way to make their mark. What could be better than planting a tree - particularly if you have grown it yourself from a local seed. Trees help to clean the air we breathe, they provide a home for wildlife, they look beautiful at every season of the year, and they help to make our countryside more beautiful, and our towns and cities healthier places in which to live and work.

The "Trees of time and place" campaign is proving enormously popular. The idea is simple, and it costs nothing to take part. All you need to do is gather some seeds from a tree in a park or a wood that is really special - a place that has been important to you in this millennium. Plant the seed in a pot - a recycled container is ideal - and if you give your seedling a little care and attention then you will have a very personal tree of time and place to plant as a mark of the new millennium.

Already, hundreds of schools have set up small educational nurseries and children are "Growing with trees". Almost half the UK's Members of Parliament have joined in by gathering acorns to grow "Constituency oaks", and all across the country, pockets of land are being set aside for people to plant their seedlings in permanent millennium copses.

The campaign is backed by a unique partnership of over 80 national organisations: government agencies such as English Nature, the Forestry Commission and the Countryside Agency are working with partners from the corporate sector - water companies, construction companies, a brewery, an oil company and a rail company - and most of the major environmental charities are partners, too.

It is easy to pledge support, and find out more about the campaign: there is an interactive Web site which uses "cutting edge" computer mapping technology, prepared by Ordnance Survey, to help everyone to see the difference they are making. Now all the campaign needs is millions of eager tree growers. This autumn promises to be a bumper year for fruits and nuts. Seed Gathering Sunday is on 10 October, and special events are taking place right through the autumn. If you choose an acorn, you are almost guaranteed success, though the seeds of some trees are a little more difficult to germinate. What matters most is that you have a go! It costs nothing, and it is just possible that the tree you grow from a seed you sow this autumn could still be alive 1,000 years from now.