EP320- National Tree Week 2026 Choosing Trees, Benefits & Much More: Tree Week, Done Right

A single tree can feel like a drop in the ocean, but stack that effort across hundreds of communities and you get something powerful: a greener Ireland built from the ground up. We’re marking National Tree Week by talking through what it is, why it exists, and how local groups can turn overlooked corners of land into long-term canopy with real environmental value.

We dig into the benefits that actually matter on the ground: carbon drawdown over time, better habitat for wildlife, and stronger biodiversity where native woodland has been lost. I also keep coming back to the one rule that saves years of hassle in gardens and public spaces alike: right tree right place. A great tree in the wrong spot becomes a problem; the same tree in the right spot becomes a legacy.

From alder and willow for wet ground to hawthorn, hazel, holly, rowan, crabapple, and the mighty oak, we run through native Irish trees and what they offer pollinators, birds, and the wider ecosystem. We also look at familiar non-native staples like sycamore and lime, especially their value for bees, and why size and site conditions matter more than hype.

To finish, we chat about the stubborn spring weather and the way big temperature swings in a polytunnel can throw off seed sowing and germination, plus a quick update on the next grow-your-own food workshop. If you enjoy practical gardening advice with a bigger environmental lens, subscribe, share this with a fellow gardener, and leave a review so more people can find it.

March 21st Grow Your Own Food In Person Workshop last few places here: 

https://subscribepage.io/growyourownfoodworkshop

Transcript

Welcome And Why Tree Week Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:12

How's it going everybody? And welcome to episode 320, Master My Garden Podcast. Now, this week's episode it falls towards the end of National Tree Week. And National Tree Week is something that we've covered on the podcast before. But I think it's important every year to maybe highlight it on the week. So possibly should have done it the week before, maybe would have given people a little bit more time to think about the week ahead. But nonetheless, we'll go through it. So National Tree Week runs in Ireland from the 8th until the 15th of March. And it is set up by the Tree Council of Ireland in conjunction with Quilche. And I suppose the purpose of Tree Week is to raise awareness of trees, their benefit within, you know, within the wider environment. And I suppose to promote the planting of trees, particularly among communities. So obviously, Quilche is a forestry body. They do a lot of planting of all types of forests across the country and management of forests and so on. But the whole idea of Tree Week is to promote it, particularly among communities. And that encompasses things like town councils, county councils, community groups, allotment groups, gardening groups, you know, sports clubs, anywhere where there's the potential for trees to be to be planted and added to the landscape, you know, taking into account right tree in the right place and so on. And so there's you know, there's it's a huge sort of push to bring trees and the planting of trees down to community level. And this year the the theme of it is growing a greener future. And again, it it is pushing towards that community uh and getting down into communities. So that could be you know, it could be the the local tidy towns committee where there's a patch of community land that is you know is free, is available to plant trees in, and you know, the tree council of Ireland in conjunction with Queelchet they donate tree trees to project like that, and then you plant them in your local area, and then they give they give the aesthetic and the environmental benefit over years and years to come. And I think that's hugely important. So obviously we have a lot of native trees, and we'll chat about some of those, and we have a lot of you know trees which are common in Ireland but not necessarily native, and you know, all have all have benefit. So if you look at since this initiative started, I'm not sure exactly how many years ago it is, but there is 150,000 trees donated to community groups donated to projects on a yearly basis. And that's a lot of trees. And since the project started, there has been one million native trees planted, and that again is a lot of trees. Uh and just a stat from their website those 1 million trees when mature, so those 1 million native trees when mature, each one of them can draw down two and a half thousand tons of carbon per year. So that's uh you know, the the the power of community. So in your little in your little area, in your little tidy towns committee or your local you know sports club, you might feel that if you plant you know a handful of trees, because that's all you have space for, that overall you're not having much of an impact. It's the combined impact of joining all of these, you know, these five and ten and twenty trees across the country has that sort of level of power. So when those trees become mature, each one of them then can draw down two and a half thousand tons of carbon per year. And so, in the overall sense, that is, you know, the collective power of all of that is huge. Um, if you aside from you know that that that level of it or that benefit of it, where it draws down carbon, aside from that, we have, you know, obviously in Ireland we have a situation where many, many years ago uh we we were a country that was heavily forested and we no longer are, and then the areas that are heavily forested are you know typically Sitka spruce, which is a commercial a commercial conifer, and is the most highly grown in the in the country. And I suppose that's grown for commercial purposes, you know, for wood uh and and and so on. And you can see the place and the need for that to a certain extent because you know there's obviously wood and timber required. Uh, but from a wider a wider argument or a wider viewpoint, we need to build up native forests again and replace native forests from from years ago. And there's huge work being done on that across various schemes. You know, you have schemes now within agriculture which is promoting promoting that, and you know, certainly certain areas of farms are being dedicated to trees, and it it's becoming more and more. Um but these areas they give habitat habitats back and they you know they provide huge amounts of of habitat for various types of creatures. And I mentioned last week that I'm doing a beekeeping course and some interesting things on that, like uh, and I'll talk about it when we come to the trees, but they're hugely trees are hugely beneficial even to bees and insects and and so on. And I forget what the stat is, but a native Irish oak, of which there is two by the way, um, but a native, fully mature native Irish tree, oak tree has the potential to be a home to an incredible amount of creatures. And I forget again that this figure I stand to be corrected on it, but it's somewhere somewhere in or around 150 different types of organisms, insects, animals will live and can live on on a fully mature oak tree. So it's it's providing a huge you know haven for biodiversity, any of these trees. So that's sort of the topic we're going to talk about some of the native trees and the common trees. Uh the one thing starting off, and the these can be, you know, all of the native trees, even there's you know, there's ornamental variations of it. So if you're if you're looking at something more ornamental, um, you know, you can get something that's more ornamental and still be beneficial in the environment. Obviously, natives' trees are the strongest in terms of biodiversity and in terms of supporting biodiversity, but there is other trees which are very, very common here and they do provide benefit and huge benefit. So the overriding theme of planting trees and tree week is that you I suppose plant trees for the right reason and in the right place, and right tree, right place is a is a phrase that's used quite a lot. Um, right plant, right place is a phrase that's used a lot in gardening, and it should definitely be the case with trees because the wrong tree in a certain place has the potential to you know completely overpower, block out light, and various things. But you know, for example, an oak tree in in a back garden in an urban setting just doesn't make sense, it's too big. Uh, but also for the plant itself, right plant, right place, it means that it will grow to its maximum potential and then be able to fulfil its potential as a tree in the right place. So it works both ways. So that's the overriding thing, you know. There's lots of organizations, obviously the Tree Council of Ireland donate trees, but there is other you know, there is other bodies that go around reforesting and and and donating trees to to people and to community organizations, and we've had some of them on the podcast before. So, you know, there's lots of those bodies out there. And each one of them has targets for themselves for the number of trees planted. And it can be very it can be very appealing when you know there's free trees to take these native trees or whatever the case may be and then stick them into your into your plot. But just make sure you're putting them into the right space. You know, uh there is no point in getting ten oak trees and sticking them in an area that again they'll they're gonna be too big for there and they can't develop. So just small little bit of research, get a tree that suits your spot, or find spots that are suitable for it. Uh, and that's the that's the overriding theme is get the right tree into the right place, and then it will have benefit for everybody going forward, including the tree itself. Um, so native trees, of which there's quite a few. Um there's variations of them and ornamental versions of them, but the true native ones, just to go through first. So alder is a is a tree, brilliant tree for very wet, wet spots and and exposed sites. It's often used for that purpose, really tough. Uh does does take a lot of wind and rain, which uh we've no shortage of, especially this week. Uh so a really good tree for for wet areas, not overly ornamental, but a beneficial tree for that type of an area. Uh, next tree, and I've gone this list has been taken from the Tree Council of Ireland's website, so it is in alphabetical order. Um, many of these trees you will know really, really well. Um the next one on their list, which is very much south southwest, so Kerry and that kind of region. It's uh Arbutus, it's the strawberry tree. Yeah, not really common in most parts of the country, but it is a native tree nonetheless. Um ash, obviously, we all know the challenges with that. Only last weekend I've started here on the land at home cutting up some trees that have fallen down over the last couple of months before you know fencing and so on. And there was one of one of them that I was cutting up, it was suppose diameter of maybe forty five forty-five centimetres or thereabouts, even a little bit bigger, and then internally that black ring that has become all too familiar where the the ash dieback has got into the tree, and this fungal disease has passed through every stem of the plant, and yeah, that main stem of the 45 centimetres could have even been a bit bigger. You probably had heading for 30 centimetres of a black ring up the centre of it, so that tree well and truly dead, and other examples of that pretty much everywhere. Um there is trees that don't seem to be getting affected or are very not affected very badly, and I'm touching wood as I'm saying that. I don't know is that is that just luck, or is there a certain strain that seems to be resisting it? Um and it seems to kind of come in phases where you know I looking at them around here over the last couple of years, I've looked at some of them and said, Oh, they look to be surviving, they look to be not picking it up, and then the next year they look to be very bad again. Uh, but there is still certain uh trees, certain what looks like certain strains that don't look to be affected at all, and fingers crossed it stays that way because that obviously would be a huge blow. A lot of ash in this area where I live, and they are dropping, yeah, dropping very, very readily all around the place. Um, there has been a very, very harsh cull of ash trees, especially on roadways over the last couple of years in Ireland. We mentioned that last year when we talked about tree week, uh too much so in some cases, because some of these trees looked like they they were definitely okay and didn't need to be cut down. And when they were cut down, there was no evidence of that black ring that I'm talking about on certainly some of them. So ash fingers crossed for it going forward. Um, hopefully, hopefully, that there is certain strains that survive. Uh aspen is another tree, is basically our pop the popular tree, it's the native popular, again, really, really suitable for wet sites, and yeah, it's a soft timber, fast grown, all those things. Two types of birch. We have the downy birch, which is has a kind of a it's it's a kind of a grey coloured uh bark and often has you know kind of big black indentations on the bark, so it's it it's that kind of um that kind of shaped tree. And you'd often again often see it in wet or marginal land, and then the silver birch, which obviously we're we're all familiar with, the beautiful white, you know, silvery type stem. We have obviously the you know the more cultivated versions of it, things like Jack Montai, which are beautiful trees for for gardens, and suitable for you know smallish gardens as well. So they're a really, really nice tree. Then we have black thorn, which is obviously a hedging plant as well, grown mostly, you'll see it mostly in hedges. Um beautiful white flower, really, really supportive of particularly bees, um, but a very, very tough plant. Be careful with it, uh unbelievably sharp thorns on it, and they can cause swelling of the hands and so on. So it's not a nice one to work with or to have to do any kind of thing with. Uh, cherry trees. There's a couple of different cherry trees suitable for Ireland. Some of them are not found across the whole co whole country, but and then obviously we have a huge amount of cultivated cherry trees which are beautiful, have various different you know, flowers on them, suitable for all sorts of gardens, small gardens, you'll get a cherry to suit you there, um, different shaped ones, columnar shape, and different colours, whites and and pinks and reds and so on. So loads of options there on cherries. Crabapple is a brilliant tree, not seeing so much now, particularly the wild, the wild version of it or the native version of it. You don't see it that often now, but crabapple, really, really tough, very useful tree in you know, in the support of biodiversity, and of course, we have a huge amount of cultivated, beautiful versions of it, some of which I have my own garden. We have um Everest planted here, beautiful flower. Spoke about it before, beautiful flower, beautiful uh autumn colour, as well as fruits, and yeah, really crab apple, brilliant tree, brilliant tree for most gardens. Again, just keep an eye on variety and size, but suitable for most gardens. Then we have uh elder, another good one, gilder rose, very good one used a lot these days in native mixed hedges. It's you know um can grow into a nice size, nice size tree if left, but in the hedge scenario, it it's you know just um obviously it's been kept a little bit cut so it doesn't reach its full potential within a hedge, and that's where you mostly see it now, is in these mixed native hedge. But a very, very good uh flowering plant for a hedge. Hawthorn, obviously, we're all well familiar with that. Again, it's the native one that you see mostly in hedges and as standalone trees, particularly you know, over the west of Ireland, you'll see it as a standalone tree, very, very tough, can grow in almost any position in Ireland. Very, very good again for bees and pollinators, has the autumn berries, which again supports biodiversity. And we do again have you know lovely cultivated versions of that, and you know, there's lots of them out there that just really really beautiful trees, ideal for small garden and will support biodiversity. Hazel is another one, super one again for for bees, particularly. So the hazel is one of the earliest flowers of the year for bees, uh, really, really, and the catkins obviously. So beautiful tree, really nice, will grow in most can most conditions, and uh yeah, a lovely, lovely tree. Holly's another one, probably one of my favourite native trees. Um, yeah, very it doesn't like wet ground, that's the only thing, but grows very, very well, brilliant as a hedging plant, really striking, obviously, with berries in the in the winter time, and yeah, beautiful tree when when fully mature and grown. Then we have oak. So, oak obviously we mentioned there's two types you have the sessile oak, which is both of these are native, sessile and um pendulum, and both of them are native trees, and yeah, they but if you are growing them really big, you know, fully mature, they're they're a huge tree. So these are not you know a small garden tree, these are open space, allow them to reach the potential, allow them to be you know what they're what they're meant to be, a big, huge tree, um statement tree, but they need space. Then we have Rowan, which is the mountain ash, again, some beautiful, beautiful cultivated versions of that. But the Rowan tree, the native one, is a very, very tough tree, will grow in almost any conditions. Uh, ideal on hillsides, wind doesn't bother, not bothered by wind. So a brilliant tree for exposed sites and loads of cultivated versions. Again, we spoke about them on the podcast, suitable for smaller gardens, beautiful autumn colour, berry interest, flowers early in the year, support biodiversity in many ways. So, again, an example of a native tree with cultivated versions of it, which are you know really beneficial to biodiversity. Um, probably my favorite native tree, or my favourite tree, and one of my favourite trees in general is Scots Pine. You don't see so many of them anymore. They are becoming, I suppose, you know, in the native tree mixes and the native tree planting plans, they are being included quite a lot. But they were a tree that was you saw not so many of them for a period of time, but there seems to be more and more of them now. Um beautiful tree. There's a couple here on the fields at home. Would like to get more there, they're a beautiful tree. Uh as I say, one of my favorites. Uh, spindle, another one. White beam is another one, very good, tough tree, really white, indent a kind of indented leaf on them. Um changes colour slightly, it comes, you know, opens up to a kind of a silvery colour and then turns greener as the year goes on. Willow, obviously, we've mentioned you know, some other trees that are really good for wet sites. This is probably the best of them. Uh, for a wet site, willow is in its element, it really, really loves um wet ground, will grow very, very easily, will uh reseed and you know sort of spread in in that sort of environment. So brilliant plant. Next one is which which elm? Um don't know of any of those around here anymore. Obviously, years ago there was Dutch Elm disease. Not sure if which elm is affected by that, but uh don't know of any of those around here. Ew trees. Again, really brilliant plant. I've spoken about it before in relation to hedging and in terms of you know the lexicopri and so on. The ew or taxis macata is a brilliant, a brilliant plant, evergreen and so on. And then there is a you know there's a whole batch of kind of native shrubs as well. And a lot of those are you know they're they're heavily supportive of insect life here, bees and so on. But that's kind of the trees, you know, native trees, and you can get ornamental versions of quite a few of those, just again to emphasize right plant in the right place. And then there's a batch of trees, which I suppose they're they're very, very common here, and in their you know, they're almost native at this stage, they're here that long, and a lot of old forests would have them. And we're talking about things like beech here, we're talking about uh chestnuts, we're talking about sycamore. Is hugely beneficial to bees. Because they have such a high, they're such a big tree, obviously, number one, so they can support an awful lot of bees. They have a lot of flower, they're very, very consistent. So some trees, depending on the weather, they can come in and out of flower very quickly, or sometimes they come in, not come into flower at all, or the flower comes but only lasts a very, very short while. Whereas a sycamore is very, very consistent, no matter what we seem to get, weather wise, it's able to deal with it. So you have a very, you know, very, very strong tree. It does self-seed. Again, it's a big tree. This is not a tree for a small garden, but yeah, hugely beneficial tree. Obviously, things like lime, again, huge tree, prefers dry ground. Um, very, very beneficial to pollinators and particularly bees again. Things like larch, used a lot for its timber, a lovely tree. Like larch is a really nice tree, so it's a it's a conifer, drops this leaf in the winter time, which is you know quite unusual in itself, and it's a beautiful tree. Timber is highly sought after. Um yeah, another another good tree. Horn beam, again, would be one that would be here such a long time now that it would be almost considered native. I know it's not native, so before anyone pulls me up on that, um, these are not natives, but they are trees that are so common here and they're here for so long that you know they're well established and they have benefit, you know, huge benefit within within the wider environment. And definitely things like, as I said, sycamores, uh lime trees, they have huge benefit uh in the wider landscape. And all of them, pretty much, you know, the likes of the chestnut and everything, they have ornamental versions that are suitable for smaller gardens and that will be beneficial in in smaller gardens. So you have all of those type trees and variations of them that would be beneficial if planted in the right place. So I suppose that's kind of the overview of all the trees and tree week. It is it's an important week, as I say, should possibly should have covered it last week because it is running from the 8th to the 15th, and by the time this goes live, the the episode is you know towards the end of that. But nonetheless, it it's something that hopefully within communities will get people thinking about planting trees, take you know, take advantage of these opportunities to get trees for your look locality, identify the right place, plan it a little bit, and then once you've identified the place, identify the correct trees for that, taking into account things like the ground, is it wet, is it dry? Uh do I have the space? For example, if it's a a big area, can I get an oak tree in there or some some oak trees in there? Or if it's a smaller area, what other trees could we plant in there that might be beneficial? So just consider the area, uh work together, talk to the you know, to the tree council of Ireland or your local authorities, if you go to them, a lot of them will direct you to people who will give you these trees. So they're opening this up and trying to push it out into communities so that the benefit the benefit will will be there for for everybody going forward. So yeah, National Tree Week. Uh check it out. There's as I say, this going out nearly towards the end of it, but there is some events for National Tree Week. It was officially opened by the president, President Connolly, last week, uh, or early last early this week. So yeah, there's lots going on. You might still catch some things in your area, but either way, the idea is to develop a community-based thinking around planting of trees and using spaces to reforest certain areas of Ireland. Um very good initiative, running for years. One million trees planted since it started, and yeah, the the other benefits, the wider benefits, are are huge as well. So that's National Tree Week. Uh, in other kinds of things to talk about, the the weather since we spoke last week has not got any better. We're really, you know, it's it's we had some good days, lovely days, felt really, really spring-like, but then we're getting some really bad wind and rain and some a lot of cold. I'm looking at the propagation bench in the tunnel and seeing on the maximum thermometer, seeing highs of kind of 25 to 27 degrees, but also seeing down to zero or 0.5 or 1 degree or 2 degrees at night. And you would have heard me saying on the podcast when we talked about you know getting ready for seed sowing, it's that fluctuation. Uh that's the real challenge for seeds. And when you're getting in a polytunnel, you're getting temperature variations down as far as one and up to 26 or 7 when it gets sunny, you know, that's a challenge. Yeah, you're you're getting cold, hot, cold, hot. And it can it can affect germination, it can affect um growth once the germination has has come. So if you are getting sporadic, maybe not wonderful results at sow and seed, that could be could be a factor. Um the other thing is we're only a week away now from the second grow your own food workshop of the spring. I just have three spaces left on that. So if you are looking to go, uh brilliant response to the last one. It was a really great day, 14 people, which is the max I can take. 14 people, great information sharing, great learning. We we sow seeds, we plant yeah, gonna be planting potatoes, gonna be showing how to grow all the various crops, how to plan your sowing, how to ensure that you have crops all year on, how to set up your area if you're new to growing, how to set up at the start and how to get it right, and all of those things that will help you. So it doesn't matter whether you're a new grower, haven't grown before, or whether you are an experienced grower and just wants to tweak things or improve things. You know, some people had on the last one had been growing for a while, but we're having certain challenges around different things in the garden and their under tunnels, and yeah, we were able to sort of troubleshoot those and get them away with with the knowledge to fix any issues that they may have. So yeah, looking forward to that. Just three spaces left. Um, you'll find the link in the bio, and yeah, hopefully, hopefully see a few more of you and get the get the maximum 14 people again. So, yeah, that's this week's episodes. Very important week, National Tree Week. And I know lots of garden centres, lots of community groups are doing things to market. So, yeah, I think it's important also that you know I mark it here in the podcast. And that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening, and I'll tell you the next time. Happy gardening.