Hounslow Greentalk is an innovative new platform developed as a bespoke resource for Hounslow residents. It has lots of clever features to help you explore public trees and make a positive difference to the environment. Hounslow is the first council to provide this level of detail and such a range of useful tools anywhere in the UK. The platform provides an unique opportunity for Hounslow residents to adopt newly planted trees and help their borough become greener.

The platform was developed to inform and engage residents on the Council’s Cleaner Greener agenda and to create opportunities for exploring the borough through walking and cycling and re-discovering it through a tree focused perspective.  

Anyone who wants to find out about trees in the borough can use the Greentalk interactive map to explore their area and what species can be seen along with many other details which promote greater knowledge and encourage learning. Once registered, users can access many other richer features including liking and adopting trees.

Over 120,000 trees have been mapped, and around 33,000 can be liked by registered users. Liked trees are saved as favourites and can be accessed through the user profile.

Users can also adopt recently planted trees in order to help care for them and improve their chances of surviving. The system alerts adopters when their trees need extra watering based on weather conditions.

Community groups caring for the environment in the borough can use Hounslow Greentalk to help with the work they already do and reach many more people. Heston Action Group, Feltham in Bloom and Abundance London are already on board, and have their own areas on the platform where they can recruit volunteers and promote their activities.

Hounslow Greentalk features a map interface which not only allows users to find out about trees in parks and greenspaces, in estates and on streets, but also enables green walks to be generated using trees as waymarks. Green walks can be automatically generated from any address, or tree, on the map either as a circular route, or as an ‘A-B’ route.

The data used to display all the information on Hounslow Greentalk is derived from the council’s tree partners who manage the trees in the borough and regularly provide up-to-date information to keep the system as relevant as possible. If a resident is aware of a problem with a tree, Hounslow Greentalk can help them report the exact tree with the right information to the relevant tree partner.

In the future, Hounslow Greentalk will become even better as more and more people start using it – we’ll be able to highlight the borough’s most interesting trees, and create walks based on the places and trees residents particularly like.