A new report has been published highlighting the importance and role of Community Trees Nurseries such as ours in the UK. The findings are part of a larger ‘Trees Outside Woodlands’ project supported by Shared Outcomes funding which Moor Trees was a participant in.
Community Tree Nurseries like ours offer a valuable source of native, local and biosecure tree stock. When the research project was embarked upon there was not a huge amount known about this growing and vibrant sector.
What is a community tree nursery?
Community Tree Nurseries can be described as “an enterprise, social enterprise, community-based group, charitable or public sector endeavour or network where volunteer community members and groups take part in growing trees, including seed/wilding collection, nursery management and sales/distribution, and also in some cases planting out’.” (Ambrose-Oji, et al., 2023).
During the project a diverse network of some 80 CTNs were identified in the UK which has since grown to more than 100 who are active members of the Community Tree Nursery Collaborative. Collectively when the data was collected the sector was producing more than 250,000 trees annually which anecdotally we know from our own experience and other Community Tree Nurseries in the South West that this now is already well surpassed. Our Impact Report 2024-25 highlighted how we had more than 95,000 trees growing in our nurseries last year alone.
The report also backs up what we know from our experiences at Moor Trees which is the value of the volunteers who give their time to support the production of local provenance trees. For us to be successful we need grant funding, access to land (ours is leased to us), plenty of volunteer time, the correct skills base (tree growing, management, admin etc), effective people management and having a clear vision for the nursery. It also celebrates the social impact of being part of initiatives at a local level to the individuals and community benefitting.
Our Nursery Assistant Holly Stewart says “Throughout the year our nurseries are a hive of activity with people joining us from all walks of life. Its great to be able to open up the nurseries on our regular volunteering days to the local community so people can learn new skills, help us in our mission to restore native woodland on Dartmoor and build friendships”.
Roger Willis, who has recently joined Moor Trees as a volunteer shares what motivates him to attend our weekly volunteering sessions at our Dartington nursery “It is satisfying to be with the current group of like-minded volunteers who are carrying on the work of previous cohorts in working towards regenerating and reinstating the ancient rainforests and woodland in and around Dartmoor to re-balance nature”.
The benefits of peer-to-peer collaboration
Over the years we have also opened our gates to other Community Tree Nurseries and have really valued the opportunity share our story and learn from others. To support this there has been a number of funded projects to help share good practice as well as the excellent The Tree Grower’s Guide which our former Director Adam Owen contributed heavily too. A recent hot topic has included developing knowledge and skills around biosecurity within a community tree nursery setting and how to make sure that staff and volunteers are up to date and aware of all that needs to be done.
Biosecurity and Plant Healthy certification
A specific way Moor Trees has been involved in the ‘Trees Outside Woodlands’ project was to pilot a group scheme approach to achieving the Plant Healthy standard. This provided a substantial number of learnings and recommendations that we were able to directly share with Defra to support further investigations to understand how to effectively support community tree nurseries to be on a pathway to meeting Plant Healthy standards and securing biosecurity certification.
Moor Trees could not run its nurseries without the support of our volunteers, funders and the landowners who invite us to their woodlands each Autumn to gather seeds as well as being able to lease the land where we run our two Community Tree Nurseries.
To support our work supplying local provenance trees please donate or join us over the coming weekends in our annual Seed Gathering programme sponsored by the Woodland Trust.
The Trees Outside Woodland project is an HM Treasury-funded action research programme delivered in partnership by The Tree Council, Natural England, Defra and five local authorities, investigating new ways to increase tree cover outside of woodlands. To find out more about the project, please visit
Photo credit: Josh Greet
