Bath Building Society has become the first business in the city to host a tree nursery on its premises, after partnering with More Trees BANES.
The saplings in the Bath Building Society garden | Photo © Bath Building Society
Using the garden at the back of their Wood Street branch, the building society will grow saplings to be planted in Bath once they are established.
They will be growing crab apple and oak trees and have sourced the seeds locally with the help of dedicated volunteers from the More Trees organisation.
The scheme will also see the trialling of air pruner pots and boxes, to see how well they perform.
This new system helps the trees to develop good quality root balls and prevents them from becoming pot-bound.
Kevin Gray, Chief Executive of Bath Building Society, said: “We intend to plant 1,200 trees in the City before we are 120 years old next year and by helping More Trees with the nursery they have more space to grow even more saplings to plant in our great City.
“Volunteers from the Society planted 300 trees in the Fox Hill area of Bath earlier in the year in partnership with More Trees.
“The tree planting was funded by us as part of the 120th anniversary of the Society’s founding.
“Despite the fact that the full benefits of this project will take decades to come to fruition, our sincere hope is that our little contribution will steadily grow to help the environment and to improve the future amenity of Bath for its citizens.”
Sandra Tuck, Development Manager from More Trees, commented: “We are delighted to be working with the Society.
“They have been really positive about trying out this new growing method for us and we look forward to “harvesting” the trees they grow in their new nursery and helping them to plant them in the ground next Winter.”
More Trees BANES is a not-for-profit organisation that works to grow, plant and care for trees in the local area.
Set up in 2008, they’ve planted approximately 11,000 trees so far.
