The London Borough of Hounslow Borough declared a Climate Emergency in 2019. The Council and its partners are looking at many ways of dealing with the effects of Climate Change and making the borough more resilient to its effects.

Planting Trees is one way of trying to reduce the carbon in the atmosphere. However, trees have a life span and are prone to pests and diseases and so we need to proactively manage our current parks tree stock to increase diversity, biodiversity and numbers to replace those that will die or fail. We need to be ambitious and not only aim to maintain the current canopy levels but add to them to increase opportunity for carbon capture, air cooling and to mitigate the effects of air pollution.

Trees not only define our park landscape but also make our greenspaces more resilient to the effects of Climate Change, thus making Hounslow a healthier environment to live in.

360 individual standard size trees and 4000 whips (young trees) will be planted in areas within parks and open spaces that have been assessed and recommended suitable by the GreenSpace360 Tree Manager for the best soil, light and location conditions for a tree to have a healthy life span. Additional trees are going to be planted as part of other improvements schemes within the borough’s parks and open spaces along with approx. 200 street trees.

Tree species have been chosen based on soil and light conditions as well as location suitability, biodiversity value, historic and cultural context and community benefit and enjoyment.

The benefits of tree planting are wide ranging including increased food sources for insects, birds and mammals and humans; connectivity between the borough’s greenspaces; diversity within the boroughs tree species; improved landscapes & active land management; shade & cooling; and enjoyment of the natural world for residents and visitors.

GreenSpace360 Staff will undertake the planting in parks and open spaces and Hounslow Highways will undertake the street tree planting. They will install stakes and watering pipes on the standard size trees to be able to water and protect the trees for the first 3 years after planting. After this general maintenance includes annual inspections to identify any required works i.e. formative pruning and basal growth removal. When standard trees and whip groves are old enough to support themselves stakes and protection fencing maybe removed.

Please do help us to look after our new trees. When we have long hot spells of warm weather in the Spring and Summer please use the left-over water in your water bottle to pour directly around the base of any new trees on your way out of the park.

Report any vandalism to new trees via Online Forms: Parks, Allotments, Cemeteries and Open Spaces (hounslow.gov.uk).

See more at trees and street trees.