Landscape nursery, Greenwood Plants prepares to deliver the first phase of National Highways’ Three Million Trees project in the forthcoming 2024/25 season.

Representatives of the government agency visited Greenwood’s nurseries earlier this month to inspect the first batch of native trees grown.

The project, which is part of National Highways’ community planting projects remit, was first announced in June last year, when Greenwood pledged to grow three million UK native trees from seed.

Greenwood group managing director, Melanie Asker, comments on the project’s importance in the realm of sustainability and biodiversity;

“We believe that every plant matters and feel the Three Million Trees initiative sets a brilliant precedent for social participation whilst contributing towards the UK’s net-zero ambitions.”

The tree whips are being cultivated from seed and grown in 100% peat-free growing media to minimise the carbon impact of the project – native species include holly, Scots pine, oak, rowan and beech.

National Highways’ director, Stephen Elderkin, shares that the nursery if more than a third of its way to the three million trees target.

“It was great to come back a year on from my first visit to see over a million saplings now growing, which is more than a third of our target of 3 million. It was fantastic to see the love and care with which Greenwood have cultivated these trees.”