How to create your own treeUT
It couldn’t be simpler!
1. First you need to get hold of some seeds (acorns, conkers, beech nuts, sycamore seeds etc)
2. Plus a few old plant pots. . .
. . . a trowel and a bit of soil or compost.
3. Plant the seeds (one per pot) about 2 cm below the surface of the soil.
Moisten the soil.
4. Label each pot, so you know what you’ve planted.
5. Sit back and let the seeds get on with it!
How to create a planting record sheet
Every time we plant a new seed, we number the pot it goes in. You can get plastic plant labels and put them in the soil, but a cheaper way is to stick a piece of duct tape on the pot and write on it with an indelible marker.
Then we use a spreadsheet (pen and paper works just as well!) to catalogue what we’ve planted and add other information we think is relevant:
Recording ‘Seed Number’ alongside ‘Seed Type’ means that in the coming months (or years) we’ll always know which seed is in which pot.
We added a ‘Provenance’ column because we want to record where the seeds came from. It may or may not be useful in the future, but we like to know.
‘Date planted’ will help us monitor the seed’s/tree’s progress. It also gives the project a clear timeline, forming part of its historical record.
For us, the ‘Planted by’ column is central to the whole ethos of treeUT, which is as much about people as it is about trees. We want people to really feel a part of the project, and recording what they did, when they did it and who they did it with, is an important part of this. We’re also taking photos as we go along.
We’ve added a couple of other columns to our record you can’t see on the image above. ‘Remarks’ gives any additional planting information that might be useful: whether or not we prepared the seeds in advance by soaking them, for instance. We also have an ‘Outcomes’ section, which is blank for the moment. Hopefully here we’ll be noting the progress of the trees once they germinate.
So – this is how we’re doing it at the moment. Of course you can to do it in a way that suits you better if you wish. The only thing that matters is that you keep a useful record. And if you have any ideas you think will improve our own, please let us know.
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