Are there any somewhat public tree planting locations in Hampshire?

Hi, this may not be the right place at all, but thought I'd ask, does anyone know of any places ideally in Hampshire where the owner of the land/place would be happy to for at least a single tree to be planted? Or Surrey/West Sussex for that matter.

I'm trying to plant more trees for nature's sake and their beauty and its quite tough actually finding places. It would be nicer if it could be seen or appreciated from a vaguely public place or publicly accessible.

Thanks

Hi John;  Welcome to Permies!
Being from Montana, I can't really say I have ever been to Hampshire (have raised piggys of that name) or Europe at all.
Nor can I tell you for sure places to plant trees.
But I can tell you that I greatly respect your efforts! Good Job!

As a land owner , I can say that anyone at all could approach me about planting a tree. They would get instant permission and an offer to help them dig the hole!

Lets hope some folks local to you have better suggestions.

I would think you could plant trees up in the White Mountain National Forest.  If you are concerned about some eventual logging, just plant them close to a stream or river where it is doubtful any logging will take place again.

I know in the West Virginia area back in the 1980's a person did what you did, sneaking into the old coal mining areas and replanting with trees. He was eventually caught one night so the mining company hired him to replant all of their old land, giving him a massive budget and everything.

Hi Thomas, thank you I appreciate that! No problem. I have two little tree planting projects with permission in the works which I'll do very soon, though I'd like to do more, I'll keep researching.

Hi Travis, thanks though I am in Hampshire in England not in the US, but thanks I enjoy that story! There do seem to be a lot of clandestine tree planters world wide who care about planting but encounter the same red tape and issues relating to getting permission. and thank you for the tip!

If you want to plant trees in "public" spaces you're going to have to contact the county council (some parks will be city council) as they are the ones who own/manage most of the parks and nature reserves. Highways agency has a lot of land as well they may have somewhere. Other than that the church owns an awful lot and approaching random vicars may work there.

John Gogh wrote:Hi Thomas, thank you I appreciate that! No problem. I have two little tree planting projects with permission in the works which I'll do very soon, though I'd like to do more, I'll keep researching.

Hi Travis, thanks though I am in Hampshire in England not in the US, but thanks I enjoy that story! There do seem to be a lot of clandestine tree planters world wide who care about planting but encounter the same red tape and issues relating to getting permission. and thank you for the tip!

Oh my, I feel SOOOOOOOO dumb now!

I completely missed the Sussex county stuff.

Here in the USA it is just plain out of control. There are so many laws, and people state all the time that you cannot legally do this or that, but here we are out of money. That means no District Attorney is going to bring a person who is breaking some red tape nonsense to court. They are more worried about those people who are violent in society. Here at least, planting trees on public land would not even get you a fine. But our county is so low on money that it has 2 people working in the office, and like 12 law enforcement agencies like the Marine Patrol, Sherriff Office, State Police, Forest Service, etc funneling so many real crimes down to them, that they can only take on the most violent crimes.

I have told a few law enforcement agencies, "what are you going to do, put me in jail for doing X,Y or Z?" My heart goes out to them, but they know even if they did cite me for something, it would never go to court.

There are laws, and then there is enforcing them...we do not have the latter.

Hi Skandi Rogers, thanks for the tips and advice, I will follow that up. I have also tried contacting the local council and relevant departments but that hasn't led to any success just yet.

Travis, don't worry about it. That is a shame about the state of finances over there and the crime. I doubt that people get in trouble for planting trees here either, as long as its not done very irresponsibly or harmfully.

I had another thought that you might even need to get down to the parish council level and get people excited about greening unused areas etc, unfortunately you would probably need to know the area you had an eye on before you could find out who to contact. I remember many many years ago our parish council planted some willows round the pond, and more recently a couple of fruit trees there I think (this is near Winchester)

Couldn't you just find a nice residential street that suits your needs and then knock on doors until someone says yet?  

If they think you're crazy, just come up with a story about being with the Royal Arborists Tree Brigade and you need to plant 4,000 trees before May Day.

Skandi Rogers: Thanks, lately I did finally get in touch with a liked minded person who mainly plants trees on private property that she asks permission for, but also in more public places, and she has been involved with more council orientated projects and such, so it may be my best bet to discuss it all more with her, we have planned to meet to discuss more ways to plant trees soon in any case. I used to live near there in Winchester too!

Mike: That is an interesting idea thanks, I'm not so great at approaching people like that, but its definitely worth considering. A new contact I made with a like minded ambition to get more trees planted does approach private/public land owners like that, so maybe as a team we will make good progress. Haha about the Royal Arborists Tree Brigade, that's a great name which sounds authentic too, (if they don't actually exist) it may come in useful some day!

what a great project!  I suggest you contact the Woodland Trust.org.uk and the New Forest Authority, https://www.newforestnpa.gov.uk/, both should be able to offer excellent advice.  Keep us informed of your progress!

Thank you very much Mandy, I have already sent an email off to Woodland Trust the other day with no reply yet but I have not contacted the New Forest Authority, thank you very much for that idea I have just sent off emails to them. I recently got interested in redwoods and though I want to stick to native English trees for the most part, I am determined to find somewhere to plan a Giant Redwood at too since they are such majestic and monumental trees when they get larger. I now have a young giant redwood tree for this project and I have begun the process to germinate seeds too for the fun of it.

I miss the beautuful woodlands of the UK.  Here, we have lots of woods but not the majestic oak and beech stands where you can walk underneath for miles.  I did think of tryi'g beech here but the fact that there aren;t any makes me think they would either not do well or compete unfavourably with the oak and chestnut that predominate.

That is a shame. Maybe there will be some information online about Beech in Spain if you are interested in that, or even Oak, I am very much a beginner in trees generally still so I would have no idea myself without searching online to try to find the answers to this.

I did just now get permission to plant a tree at an open air museum/experimental archaeology site locally that is open to the public so I'm very pleased with that!

Perhaps the National Trust in your area may be interested in a volunteer tree planter? They own much more land than just the bits open to the permies.

Ooooh, good thinking!  Try English Heritage too!

Thank you very much Tim and Mandy, yes those are great ideas too! I'll try both those ideas.

Hi John,
Are any of these going to be food producing trees? With food trees you get a double impact. Not only do they sequester carbon and green a space, they lower pollution and carbon footprint by negating the long shipping distance of industrial food

Hi James, thank you, I see that logic yes that's a good thing to think about too definitely. One of the trees I'll soon plant is a sweet/wild cherry tree, so that will eventually produce cherries. The others will be Oak and Yew, which I know aren't really fruit trees, but technically you can use acorns for all kinds of things, flour, coffee, snacks, when processed properly, and yew berries are edible if you avoid the pips - though I know you likely meant more popular classic fruit, though people should also forage more and use these less common food sources but I guess I am slightly eccentric in that way.

I will look at more food type trees in the future too, though I tend to like either the non-fruit trees like the above or obscurer type berry/fruit trees because less commonplace fruit or berries are more interesting to me. But I get your point, I haven't thought that much about this side of it much yet. I did consider Sweet Chestnut instead of Oak for one of my new projects but its not truly native and I prefer Oak more for how it looks (and acorns can be eaten).

It is true that acorns are edible (usually with processing) but something to keep in mind is that chestnuts often produce every year in this kind of climate. And walnuts also produce more often. Oak trees often only produce a bumper crop every few years, as a method of controlling pests. While I see the value in planting any tree, including natives, I think that creating a landscape that can support people during famine is important as well

When planting oak,beech or chestnut in the new forest you are contributing to pannage.  Important to keep to local species in those situations I think.




and a little more info..
https://www.thenewforest.co.uk/explore/wildlife-and-nature/pigs

Hi John
I have an animal sanctuary in Hampshire near Farnham I'm sure we could find some where for you to plant your trees if you are still interested.

Regards

Anita

Anita Pye wrote:Hi John
I have an animal sanctuary in Hampshire near Farnham I'm sure we could find some where for you to plant your trees if you are still interested.

Regards

Anita

Hi Anita, thanks so much for your reply and kind offer, I really appreciate that, sorry for my late response to this. I will get in touch soon with you to discuss this more! It looks like you run the orchard farm animal sanctuary if I'm right so I will try to make contact with you through that if that's ok.

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Sorry for the late reply guys:

Mandy: Thanks for your post and videos, that is interesting and good to know about too, I'm not familiar with that at all like many things I still have to learn about in this area. I did enjoy seeing the semi-wild horses somewhat recently around the New Forest roaming around.

James: Thank you for your post and for that information too. I suppose I've been focused more until now on what trees look nice to me, but for practical purposes and more appropriately for permaculture type principles I guess its more important to consider things like the food or fruit you can get from trees/bushes/plants rather than just the beauty of them. I'll be reading and learning more about permaculture soon as its all quite new to me so my knowledge and ideas will mature I'm sure with that too.