A free one-day workshop taking place next month is set to show people how they can grow native trees and start their own Community Tree Nursery.

Jeannie Buckingham is co-ordinator for 2 Fields Community Supported Farm at Debenham - which will be hosting the event on Saturday, September 21.

Jeannie will be joined by speakers from the Suffolk Black Poplar Project and the Suffolk Tree Warden Network.

Key themes include climate resilience and agroforestry - as well as learning about certain native tree species that are particularly hard to grow to encourage increased seed collection of these species.

The farm will be running the event in partnership with the Growing Diversity project - a partnership initiative between the Woodland Trust and Fellowship of the Trees funded by the Forestry Commission's Tree Production Innovation Fund.

The workshop - where participants will learn how to grow native trees from seeds - is aimed at people interested in or already involved in a Community Tree Nursery (CTN) and runs from 10.30am to 4.30pm.

The CTN at Debenham is divided into four acres of agroforestry where crops are grown and three acres of broadleaf woodland to be managed for future wood fuel.

Local volunteers collect local seed from notable trees. An acre of food forest/garden is used to grow edibles, medicines and other useful products and another acre is set aside for a traditional orchard.

The Debenham site also includes a nuttery of six local Suffolk cob nuts from which volunteers hope to layer four plants from each variety.

A further nine acres of "silvo pasture" is made up of six grazing paddocks with in-field trees and double-fenced hedgerows.

CTNs involve local people in growing trees - usually from seeds for local tree planting. They can vary in size and type from growing some trees in containers in a garden to a large plot with paid staff. 

Anyone can start a CTN in their local patch, there are lots of resources now available to help with the early stages of seed collection and growing. Check out: https://fellowshipofthetrees.org/our-projects/ for more resources and support on this topic.

The Growing Diversity project is a partnership initiative between the Woodland Trust and Fellowship of the Trees, funded by the Forestry Commission's Tree Production Innovation Fund.

In particular the project aims to strengthen and support CTNs to grow more of the 'hard to source and grow species’, thereby diversifying tree production in CTNs generally.

Growing Diversity project coordinator Hilary Campbell said they were particularly focusing on helping people to collect seeds from tree species identified as harder to course and grow such as  small-leaved lime, wayfaring tree and wild service tree.

"Suffolk is one the key regions in England where the Growing Diversity project is delivering focused support for increasing tree seed collection," she said.

"We are privileged to be working in partnership with 2 Fields Community Tree Nursery on this event to help encourage more people to learn the creative skills in growing Native trees from local gathered seeds."

The Growing Diversity project provides free peer to peer learning events to help a wide range of people learn how to grow trees from seed.

Anyone interested in attending will need to register in advance. Visit the eventbrite booking page at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/894432199787?aff=oddtdtcreator