Trees for the Future

The best time to plant a tree is right after you watch our latest New Perennialist Talk.

In fact, you may well end up planting many more than just one.

If you are a designer, landscape architect or serious gardener, think about watching Understanding Tree Selection in the 21st Century in the Talks archive. It’s about selecting the best possible specimens to provide climate resilience, carbon storage, boosting biodiversity, and other essential ecosystem benefits. Not to mention for the life-giving beauty, scale and character that trees bring to our gardens and landscapes.

All this comes only if we plant the right tree in the right place. Especially in urban environments.

My special guests are international tree expert Henrik Sjöman from Sweden and Arit Anderson, UK garden designer, passionate advocate for the environment and presenter on BBC Gardeners‘ World. And they are here to help us think very big indeed.

Together, they have just come out with The Essential Tree Selection Guide, a timely new book designed to help us make the best possible choices for tree planting in the face of climate change. Featuring an A-Z tree directory with more than 500 trees suitable for the world’s temperate regions, this hardcover essential is published on filbert press in association with the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew.

Arit Anderson makes it all crystal clear:

Our changing climate has put a new spotlight on the importance of trees and, as more people want to be part of the solution, it is crucial we understand the role and functionality of trees so they will be there for future generations.

 

Barking up the right tree

This talk will provide an excellent introduction to the specifics of tree selection, ultimately helping us to make more informed decisions in our own garden landscapes and professional design projects:

• How to maximise a tree’s chance of reaching maturity and having a long life for effective carbon sequestration.
• How to select trees for specific situations such as drought or storm conditions, or nutrient deficiencies.
• How different trees give different types of shade, and what would work best for your site
• All trees help to mitigate flooding to some degree, but this book tells you which are the most effective.
• The importance of succession in tree selection, and how that affects your choice of tree.
• The significance of considering trees planted outside your boundaries when making your choice of which tree to plant, particularly in a garden environment.
• The contribution that trees make to soil regeneration.
• How every garden and patch of green contributes essential benefits to the wider environment.

Meet the speakers:

Henrik Sjöman is Scientific Curator at Gothenburg Botanical Garden, a Senior Researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and an Honorary Research Associate at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He specializes in how trees deliver ecosystem services in urban landscapes and the practical applications of this in terms of diversifying the urban treescape. Henrik communicates his research through numerous publications and by lecturing to urban planners, landscape architects, garden designers and tree nurseries throughout the world.

Arit Anderson studied garden design at Capel Manor College and rose quickly to success at RHS Chelsea 2013 winning the Fresh Talent category followed by a Gold Medal at RHS Hampton Court in 2016 for her own show garden which highlighted the need for renewable energy. She is a presenter for BBC Gardeners’ World, hosts a popular podcast ‘Growing Greener’ and writes for national publications all of which enable her to open up the debate about the future of gardening in a changing climate to a wide audience.

The talk was fantastic on all levels and will soon be ready to view on demand in Talks here on the blog.

Stay tuned for upcoming talks led by some of the most brilliant minds on the international scene today.

The more we learn, the more we can do.