The borough’s interactive website Hounslow Greentalk encourages residents to get involved with its Adopt a Tree campaign. You simply sign up on the website and then take on a public tree close to your home. A little bit of water and some TLC can make all the difference to these planet-saving trees.

People from all over the borough have signed up to take part.

It’s a chance to do your bit for the environment and reconnect with nature.

And in one remarkable example the Adopt a Tree initiative is helping a young girl from Isleworth carry on a family tradition that began many years ago and thousands of miles away.

Here we take a look at:

Kea’s Family Tree

If you’re passing through Isleworth on a hot dry day, you just might see Kea D’Silva stood at the side of the road with her watering can in hand.

The 14 year-old has an awareness about the fragile nature of our environment and like many young people her age, she wants to preserve it.

So passionate is Kea about nature, that she has signed up to Hounslow Greentalk’s Adopt a Tree initiative.

“I have always been concerned about protecting and preserving the natural environment,” Kea said. “I believe If we want to preserve the best of nature for generations to come, we need to act now by making changes.”

Kea’s fully aware of the science behind our need to support trees and how it feeds into the Climate Emergency our borough declared in 2019.

Kea said: “I guess what really fascinates me is that plants and trees filtrate the air we breathe, so I feel it’s so important to sustain and preserve what we have and also to plant for generations to come.”

So, she gives a little bit of her time for a really big cause. She helps to care for a street tree and in doing so, she’s helped to preserve her own family’s heritage. Kea is echoing a tradition that harks back to her grandfather’s childhood in India.

“My grandfather when he was younger, would plant crops and grow food,” she said. “He would care for the birds and animals by feeding them and leaving out water for them. He would nurse them back to health if they were sick. He would learn from a young age how to cultivate land to produce the best crops and how to germinate seeds and look after the bees and insects so they would pollinate his flowers and crops.”

There are more than 123,000 trees in Hounslow. The Council and its partners believe every single tree in this impressive green canopy is special. It’s clear that the people of the borough do to, because when it comes to giving them a little extra help, there are people like Kea who can.

“For my grandfather I have adopted a tree within my local community near his house,” she said. “It’s newly planted and I hope to look after it so it can grow into a mature tree and contribute directly to the environment by providing oxygen and improving the air quality. It will also support wildlife, something that is really important to my grandfather and myself.”

The Council takes care of watering the tree, but every so often I get an email alert when the weather has been particularly hot to water the tree.”

Kea’s message to anyone who cares for the environment in Hounslow is a simple one: “Get involved.” 

She said: If more people adopted a tree within our local community our area would be naturally purifying the air around us and fighting diseases. We would be doing our bit for the environment and for generations to come, just like my grandfather did many years ago.”

To find out more about Hounslow Greentalk and how to Adopt a Tree, visit: https://hounslow.greentalk.io/