Planting trees is hard work. It’s physically demanding, messy, and can be costly. But that’s just the beginning. Without proper maintenance, care, and monitoring, all that effort and money will go to waste. You may as well dig a hole to plant a tenner (let us know if you manage to grow a money tree!). TreeActionUK partners with local schools and public spaces to plant trees, and we need help from the wider community to see our work bear literal and figurative fruit. While trees obviously benefits from our local volunteers, it might surprise you to learn just how much the volunteers benefit from caring for trees.
Physical benefits
Simply put, volunteering is good for you. By tending trees, you’re spending time outdoors, moving your body, and breathing fresh air. Tree maintenance volunteers can get stuck in and work with their hands. Depending on your level of physical fitness, you can do anything from carrying heavy materials to helping spread mulch around tree saplings to simply walking around to spot which trees need care.
Mental benefits
People also enjoy mental health benefits from volunteering. By volunteering to do something you like, it gives you more time to have fun, which can improve your self-worth, give you a new sense of purpose, improve your mood, and more. Tree maintenance volunteers can also reduce their stress and anxiety levels by spending time outdoors. Research has shown that acts of kindness and generosity trigger the release of feel-good hormones like oxytocin.
Social benefits
Many volunteering opportunities put people together. Volunteering gives people the chance to meet others with similar interests and values. It’s a great way to make new friends, regardless of how long someone has lived somewhere. Increased social interaction is closely linked to slowing cognitive decline, which is increasingly common for older adults. Tree maintenance volunteering goes beyond improving individual’s social benefits. Volunteers play a crucial role in their community because they give their time to improve the area around them. This social change helps schoolchildren better understand where their produce comes from and their relationship with nature. It also improves public spaces by increasing biodiversity. That biodiversity, coupled with an increase in the number of trees, helps combat climate change by cooling the planet.
Benefits for trees
With the official start of summer just around the corner, now the one of the most crucial times of the year for tree maintenance. Without proper care, trees can suffer from problems such as drought, pests, and overcrowding. Volunteers can help care for trees in the summer in a variety of ways. An easy way is to ensure proper mulching around trees. Mulch retains soil moisture, regulates temperature, and helps suppress weeds. An essential part of tree maintenance is pruning, and summer is the ideal time to do just that. Pruning promotes healthy tree growth, rids a tree of unhealthy branches, and clears out overcrowded sections. While it might seem counterintuitive, making these cuts help encourage trees to grow.
How you can help
If being a tree volunteer sounds like fun to you, now is a great time to get started. TreeAction is partnering with CPRE the Countryside Charity in Sussex to organise a Tree Festival in June. On 14 and 21 June, TreeAction will be hosting events at the following locations: Southwick Rec, Adur Rec, and McIntyres Field.
The Southwic Rec event (10 a.m., 14 June) allows people to meet up with Tree Action’s conservation volunteers and learn about tree maintenance. The Adur Rec event (12 p.m., 14 June) offers the chance to learn about Adur Rec’s historic woodland and the new trees TreeAction has planted. Both events on 14 June will have a forest school leaf hunt game for children and families. Local forest school teacher Gabby Osborne will be leading both sessions.
Finally, the McIntyres Field event in Lancing (10 a.m., 21 June) needs helpful hands to give some care and attention to over 200 neglected young trees planted last year. After checking which trees are still alive, we need help clearing weeds, tidying, mulching, replacing guards. Your support will ensure the survival rates of these trees goes from around 20% to 80%! Please join us for these exciting events this month, and stay on as a tree volunteer if you have a fun time.