Hamptons is delighted to be an official supporter of Green Tree Badge: “For The Love of Trees”, a landmark nature-based initiative with the aim of challenging children, schools, and families to learn more about the amazing world of trees, co-founded by Bags of Ethics, a sustainable product brand, and the Royal Forestry Society, a forestry and woodland education charity.
Hamptons is an official “shelter theme” partner for Green Tree Badge.
We asked Smruti Sriram, Chief Executive of Bags of Ethics, and co-founder of Green Tree Badge to give some insights on how to engage more with trees in your home, and beyond.
Why are trees so special to Bags of Ethics?
When Smruti’s son was born, her family planted eight Camellia trees, to celebrate her son’s birth, which stands proudly in Smruti’s parents’ front garden. Every March vibrant pink flowers adorn the trees, bringing hope to the new spring ahead.
Trees really are incredible and play such an important part in our lives – yet we often just walk, cycle, or drive past them, taking them for granted.
- Trees clean our air, water and soils.
- They provide wood, paper and food.
- Trees protect us from harsh weather conditions – windy storms, or torrential rain. Through their deep root structures, they can hold together landforms so that we don’t suffer from landslides.
- The “wood wide web” is the name for the deep root structure in which trees can communicate with each other about pest or disease attacks, and can transport nutrients across the soil.
- Trees provide shelter – for example, an oak tree can home over 2 million species!
- They help us feel calm – can we quantify this at all with a stat from RFS?
Trees at home: What to plant
Bags of Ethics have learned from Tony Kirkham, former Head of the Arboretum at Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, who advises Green Tree Badge, that it is very dependent on your garden size, and what type of soil you might have. Tony is also known as the “tree God” – a world-leading expert on trees. Below are some suggested trees to plant in your garden;
- English oak trees are currently under threat due to a variety of pests and diseases such as acute oak decline, oak processionary moth and powdery mildews. This is why it’s important to get more oaks into the ground in large gardens, due to Oak trees growing to 45 metres tall and can spread almost as wide.
- Silver birch trees are elegant with their silvery, papery bark which can look enchanting during winters. Silver birches prefer sandy or acidic soils and can grow to 15-25 metres tall, so are best for medium or large-sized gardens. Small birds are attracted to them with the seeds and insects that the birch hosts.
- Crab apple trees are charming for small gardens, and can be kept small with pruning (7-9 metres tall). They produce a lovely pink-white blossom for which the pollen and nectar are great for bees.
Trees at home: When and how to plant
The best time of year to plant trees in the UK is between October to late March. However, you must remember to water the trees as drought stress is common with newly planted trees. Remember that you can also overwater trees if the soil does not drain well.
A tip is to not plant the tree too deep into the ground as it can often cause the tree to die.
Trees at home: Furniture
When choosing what furniture to buy for your home, re-think about the material in which they are composed, and if you can incorporate natural materials like wood as the main component. Below are several reasons why using more natural materials in your home is important:
- Wood is a brilliant form of capturing carbon.
- Wood is very durable and can last for years with little maintenance. Hardwoods like walnut, white oak, cherry, and teak can last for generations. Softwoods, like pine and cedar, are more common and are not as expensive as hardwoods because they grow to maturity faster.
- As long as the wood is harvested responsibly (each time a tree is cut, one or more is planted as a replacement), it remains the leading, most natural and sustainable resource in the home over materials such as plastic and steel.
- Remember that wood is very versatile and amendable. It can always be repurposed by sanding it down, varnished to be a different colour so it’s highly flexible over other materials such as metals or plastics, which are difficult to change into other forms without it being melted down and reformulated.
Trees at home: Additional benefits
Remember that trees are natural air conditioners. If you build homes with trees around the properties, they provide shade from severe heat, and if a person stands under a tree, trees can reduce the outside temperature by approximately 10oC!
Connecting children and trees
One reason Bags of Ethics and the Royal Forestry Society launched the Green Tree Badge is that if they can teach tree management skills to children, then there will be a generation of people who have the knowledge, care, and confidence to interact positively with trees. It’s not always about planting trees, it’s also about the after-care.
Register your children for the Green Tree Badge here where they can get an Activity Passbook filled with over 24 activities such as foraging seeds, tree-water challenges, and leaf art opportunities in the aim to get a Green Tree Badge. It’s predominantly aimed at primary school-aged children, but older children of 12+ can take part in the Gold Awards for Green Tree Badge.
Books about trees
Trees feature in all sorts of ways in books, but here are some of Green Tree Badge’s favourites for you and your families;
- Arboretum by Tony Kirkham and Katie Scott – this beautifully illustrated book on trees showcases their magnificence and goes through step-by-step on tree features, their properties, their leaves, trunks, and root structures. It also lists wonderful trees from around the world – from Sequoias in California to Baobabs in Africa, Banyan trees in India to Handkerchief trees in Central China.
- The Queen’s Green Canopy: Ancient Woodland and Trees by Adrian Houston and Charles Sainsbury-Plaice – this book is special to Bags of Ethics as they were official supporters of the Platinum Jubilee project which saw over three million trees being planted in honour of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. The book features stunning photographs by renowned photographer Adrian Houston, advisor and ambassador of Green Tree Badge, and includes a foreword from HM The King of the 70 ancient woodlands and trees dedicated by the Queen’s Green Canopy initiative.
- Under The Bodhi Tree – A Story of the Buddha by Deborah Hopkinson and Kailey Whitman - a children’s book about the Buddha and his previous life as a prince culminating in him gaining enlightenment under the Bodhi tree.
- The Wind in The Willows by Kenneth Grahame – a classic novel for children that features one of Smruti’s favourite trees – the weeping willow.
If you are a family, a school, a group leader or a teacher interacting with young children we would love for you to sign up for the Green Tree Badge which launches in September 2023. To find out more visit bagsofethics.org and help reach Bags of Ethics’ target of 1 million children to love and learn more about trees.
Hamptons has worked with Bags of Ethics for several years utilising sustainable tote bags and eco-friendly merchandise, which may have been spotted at the recent RHS Chelsea Flower Shows!
To find out more please visit Green Tree Badge supported by Hamptons.
