Tree champions are active in a range of activities in support of our precious urban trees.
Becoming and Being a Tree Champion
Guidance
Documents here is being updated
- Becoming
a Tree Champion
- Guidance
for Tree Champions
- The Membership Form is now available . Completing the
form not only provides essential information about you but it also gathers some
views on how we should run this network.
- How to get yourself known by the local communitee? Suggestions need - How many
would be prepared to have their name on the website and/or their email address
used for correspondance?
Links
- Where are the tree champions? This Ward map shows the number of tree champions
in each ward. ( not yet current )
Identifying Tree Species
Guidance
- Woodland Trust Guides to British Trees
- The Conservation Volunteers guide to the trees that grow and distribute for free
I dig Trees - Tree
Library
- Downloadble identification key for 30 common british trees by Kevin Widdowson
- The ideal way to learn trees, esspecially the unusual ones, is to see them, in an arboretum where the tree are labeled, or on a tree walk, or using our BTF location-aware web app - see 'Knowing our Local Trees'.-
Books
- Collins Tree Guide by Owen Johnson and David More - definitive guide to common
and ornamental trees in Britain and Europe : very complete but best used as a
reference Amazon
- The Mitchell Beazley pocket guide to Trees by Keith Rishforth - out of print but lots of cheap second-hand copies. A perfect, slim pocket book which manages to cover around 500 species .
Apps
Knowing our Local Trees
Knowing our local trees, their species and history and helping others in our
communities to know and appreciate their trees develops the sense of a 'City of
Trees'. The Trees of Bristol website was developed with the aim of providing a
'virtual arboretum' with which we can identify our local trees, find examples of a
species of interest and visit our most important and iconic trees.
Links
- Our Trees Of Bristol site provides a number of ways to find and
identify trees:
- This site also provides
- Locations, photos and data on trees in the public domain in
Bristol.
- Information on the species of our trees.
- Boundaries and data on greenspaces, allotments and many other kinds
of sites in Bristol.
- Our own planning portal which provides an enhanced view of selceted
planning applications.
- Calculators to assess the value of mature trees and the age of a
tree given its girth.
- Animations of the change over time of some sites,
mapped data on wards and tree canopy.
- Bristol City Council also provides the excellent Pinpoint where amongst many other layers of information. BCC
planted trees are mapped (see the layer 'Trees' under the heading
'Environment and planning' under 'Local information')
Tree life cycle : Growing from Seed
It's cheap, useful and challenging to grow trees from seed. Each species of tree has
its own requirements for seed preparation and
germination. Many need to be in soil for one or more cold winters, known as stratifing, before they will germinate. "The Good Seed Guide" is excellent and available for £5. The TCV guide is a good resource to get started. Some species of trees
(planes, poplars. willows) can also be propagated from cuttings.
Once the trees have one full year's growth (whips) they can be used as part of our
tree-giveaway project. Grown on for a few years they become a lovely gift for a
tree-lover. We also plan to work with BCC to get them planted in street or woodland
settings.
Links
- The best guide is a comprehensive booklet produced by The Tree Council "The Good Seed Guide: All you need to know about growing trees from seed" (2001). No longer in print but a second-hand copy will cost about £5.
- The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) produced a booklet on growing trees
from seeds Growing Trees .
- Hiller's notes on Propagating from Hardwood and Softwood cuttings
Tree life cycle : Acquiring
If your haven't grown your trees from seed, you will have to acquire trees to plant from somewhere. Some organisations (including BTF) distribute trees for free or for cost price.
Guidance
- What to look out for when buying a tree (TBD).
Sources
Tree life cycle : Planting
Getting new trees planted in streets, parks and woodland, and ensuring that planted
trees get established and thrive in harsh urban environment and often challenging
weather conditions is crucil ato maininging and increasing the tree canopy. Since
Bristol City Council has no money of its own for trees, funding has to come from
national programmes, corporate sponsorship, community groups and individuals.
Activities
- Tree champions can help to organise crowd-funding and seek out sponsorship so
that the 800 designated planting sites around Bristol can be filled.
- The One Tree per Child team welcomes volunteers to help plant and maintain
woodland trees
- Each year we distribute, from our depot, free of charge, thousands of small tree
saplings to residents of Bristol, and often far beyond. The species may vary
each year, according to what is on offer, and are available for anyone able to
collect. Tree Champions may like to publicise this offer amongst their local
network, and indeed have some to plant themselves. In previous years we have
given away around 10,000 tree saplings, including oak, silver birch, alder and
downy birch. It is likely that the Tree Giveaway this planting season will be in
early February.
- There are two 'Tiny Forests', 200 m2 areas of dense tree planting, in
Bristol and they need 'Tree Keepers' to help look after them. This includes the
occasional visit to check on the trees, remove rubbish and big weeds. There are
also science days to assess the biodiversity and to measure tree growth.
Guidance
Links
Guidance
Tree Life Cycle : Establishment
The first few years of a tree's life are the most difficult.
Guidance from the Arboricultural Association
Tree Life Cycle : Maintaining
Surveying the state of your local trees. This can be with collaboration with local
schools and other local groups. Council tree officers cannot routinely patrol the
entire Bristol City Council tree estate of around 50,000 trees so keeping an eye out
for problems due to damage or disease provides early warning to the Council.
Links
- The BCC Tree management policies is essential reading.
- Form to Report a problem to BCC. This form guides the user through a
series of dialogies to identify the best course of action if indeed it is a
council matter at all. Many types of report will lead to FixMyStreet
(below)
- Fix My Street is now used to report many of the problems with trees and
other aspects of the cityscape. Not only can issues be reported here but other
reported issues are mapped on this site, so you can see if the issue has already
been reported or what other tree-related issues have been rported, and whether
they have been resolved.
- Tree issues on FixMyStreet Note that a 'closed' issue means that you
can no longer update the information about the tree and issues. It do not mean
that it has been fixed
Guidance
Reference
Tree Life Cycle : Under Threat : Tree Felling orders
Tree Felling Orders are issued by the council when a street tree is to be felled.A review of benefits and challenges in growing street trees in paved urban environments
Felling orders are posted on the tree concerned which provide details of the tree
site and plot number and the reason to fell. Information about Felling orders are
sent to ward councillors .
Since November 2023, there is a new duty to consult but there are a large number of
exemptions which severely limit the case where consultation is require. As of March,
2024, work is ongoing by BCC on procedures for notification and consultation.
Links
Tree Life Cycle : Under Threat : Planning Applications
Awareness of which planning applications affect trees, scrutiny of those
applications and submitting comments where appropriate has been the core activity of
Tree Champions.
Links
Guidance
Tree Life Cycle : Under threat : Tree Protection Orders
The retention of our mature urban trees is critical to the maintenance of our tree
canopy. As our
CO2
calculator shows, it takes many newly planted trees to compensate for the
value of a mature tree even given 30 years to do so. Trees in an urban context often
come into conflict with the needs and desires of residents. However our mature trees
are crucial to the nature of the city and pre-date by many years the current
residents. It is important to scrutinise and where necessary, challenge applications
to fell, perhaps through the application for protection via a Tree Protection Order.
Guidance
Tree Life Cycle : Veterans
Veteran trees are protected by legislation due on part for their rich biodiversity.
There is often dispute about whether a tree is a veteran or not. Determining the age
of veterans is particularly hard.
Guidance
Links
Tree Life Cycle : Replacement
Trees on Trails and in Arboretum
Volunteering
Volunteering for tree planting, street tree care and recruiting tree sponsors
involves acivities in public spaces. We have a duty to ensure that such activities
are out responsibly and with due attention to health and safely and with the require
level of knowledge and skills for the task. BCC provides a service for volunteers
working in parks groups and other organisations around the city and are offering to
provide similar training for our volunteers. This collaboration is under discussion.
The Charter for Parks Volunteers may be the basis for such an arrangement.
Links
Education and Learning
Activities
- Opportunities arise to work with schools to provide help and guidance with the
trees in their grounds and in the locale. This might include guidance in
planting trees, citizen-science work measuring and monitoring tree growth, or
helping children to learn to identify trees.
- Organising a tree walk. A number of Tree Trails
have been documented on Trees of Bristol, such as the Downs trail, Brandon Hill
and a more recent trail for St Andrews Park
- Researching and adding to our tree trails
Strategic Engagement
BTF are involved in several strategic exercises to advocate for the role that trees
play in the quality of the urban environment.
Links
Collaboration
Concern for the Urban Forest intersects with many other concerns - biodiversity,
growing food, climate change... We all benefit from collaboration, even when, or perhaps
especially when, there is competition for resources such as funds, volunteer time and
land. Tree Champions can act as the connection with other groups across the city and
nationwide to ensure that understanding of the role oand importance of trees is
understood in all these organisations which can affect te fate of our Urban Forest
- Other Tree groups such as Forest of Avon Trust, Woodland Trust
- Parks groups such as the Friends of St Andrews Park
- Civic groups such as the Henleaze Society, the Civic Society, Amenity
groups
- Nature and ecology groups such as the Bristol Naturalists Avon Wildlife Trust
- Campaigning groups such as Friends of the Earth
- Landowners such as the University of Bristol, National Trust, Bristol City
Council
Contributing to our records of trees and greenspaces
Help improve the quality of our record of Bristol Trees.
Links
Guidance
Creativity
Trees and green spaces are the inspiration for many creative arts. All forms
celebrate the importance of trees in our lives.
- Photographs and paintings to show off our iconic trees and greenspaces. Tree
photos would be a welcome addition to the Trees of Bristol site, even more
so if we can identify which tree it is. Photos of Parks and other green
spaces are also needed.
- Poetry to express the personal meaning of trees
- Carving and turning to make useful and beautiful objects out of our lost
trees
- Writing about the history and nature of specific trees, greenspaces or
species to express their value to naure and the comm.unity
- Ceremonies around trees such as Green Man and Wassailing.
- Graphic design for the websites - icons for trees and sites
Citizen Science
Citizen Science projects provide valuable data as well as engagement with trees for
adults and school children.
- Data on the growth rate of urban trees is hard to obtain. We can help by
measuring and recording tree growth with dendrometer bands.
- We know in theory of the value of trees in cooling the urban landscape but
actual measurements of surface temperatures in different locations and at
different times provides direct evidence of this fact.
- We have developed a remote tree sensor which
reports soil moisture level and air and soil temperature every two hours. These
can be used to monitor conditions in a woodland or planting site and for longer
term research into planting methods.
Organisational assistance
A small organistion like ours is always in need of help with the usual roles of the
committe as will as in areas we don't adequately cover such as
- Funding
- Publicity
- Writing
- Tutorials on YouTube
Technical assistance
To support or activities we often need technical help in the areas of:
- Wordpress (The Bristol Tree Forum site is a Wordpress site)
- GIS - we do a lot of mapping work with qGIS
- Web design - we need a better set of tree icons for example
- Drone flying - very useful to survey a site or a specific tree
- Electronics - help with remote sensing devices and other ideas.
ProjectsEventsAdvice
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