What trees are you allowed to plant?

My FIL has recently sold some trees for timber (in Spain). He’s not allowed to plant new ones yet as the government haven’t issued the rules on which trees are allowed to be planted.

This got me thinking – do these rules exist in the UK? If I have a piece of land can’t I plant whatever type of tree I want?

I don’t think there are rules here apart from whether they would interfere with the land use designation? Spain and Portugal I think have large areas of non-native trees planted, particularly eucalyptus, which are a fantastic source of fuel for wild fires so causing problems.

Don’t plant any that have leaves that can fall off. The consequences are dire for your lawn and worse than a dead badger.

Don’t plant any that have leaves that can fall off.

The hedgehogs would be very disappointed if mine didn’t; they use the leaves to insulate their bedrooms!

The planting of leylandii absolutely should be punishable by a week in the stocks.

It’s eucalyptus that he’s getting cut down but is unsure what to replace it with. A few years ago they stopped allowing eucalyptus to be planted but I think they’ve relaxed the rules a bit.

It rains most of the year there but they do still have fires in the summer.

If I have a piece of land can’t I plant whatever type of tree I want?

I’ve planted out a few trees on land I don’t own. Some call it guerilla gardening, I just used it for some trees grown by my kids collecting seeds or root cuttings when we’re out.
One of them is up to about 3m now, a Scots pine.

https://www.forestryjournal.co.uk/news/24637314.ips-spruce-tree-planting-banned-large-swathes-england/

It rains most of the year there but they do still have fires in the summer.

Does he live on the plain?

If you own woodland you have a management plan where you detail how you’ll look after the woods including any cutting down existing trees and planting new. That has to be signed off by the forestry commission and I think they can ask you to change it if they feel it’s unsuitable – certainly this is the case in asnw or sssi land.

You also can’t (I think) plant some species like Japanese knotweed

You could I think get in some trouble of you knowingly planted a tree in a location that would cause damage to a building. The guidance in that is to a degree species specific but its not exactly an official ban.  Basically don’t plant eucalyptus trees right next to your house if you have wet clay soil!

Does he live on the plain?

Ignoring the joke: it sounds like Galicia, which has an absolute plague of non-native Eucalyptus trees dating back to the start of the last century. It sounds like they’re now legislating to only allow native trees, but Spanish law-making is no faster than any other country, and you end up in situations like this…

I’m in forestry and actually don’t know the answer for sure – but as this is the internet I will guess based on what I do know.

What happens with Forestry and Land Scotland is they produce Land Management Plans that include planting detail, that is overseen and approved by a conservancy body. There is no similar process for gardens obviously, but at what scale you need approval for what you are planting, I don’t know.

What I do know is that the wrong tree in the wrong place can be surprisingly bad. Some conifers are pretty fecund for example – downwind of a spruce plantation often has a lot of self seeders – and given an infinite period of no intervention more fecund non-native man introduced trees would overrun native trees.

What I did when planting trees in my garden and on neighbouring land was get native trees – Scots pine, birch, rowan – and ensure the seed stock provenance was right before planting – the genetics of Scots pine varies between ancient forest remnants  so I sought out locally gathered seeds. Or rather, I borrowed the correct trees from a local native restock site.

I imagine for someone not in the industry find and contact the most local nursery.

Also if you can’t find a formal way of getting help with tree planting, charities like the Woodland Trust might help.

We keep a small nursery area for tree seedlings at one end of the garden here in Angus and each winter, plant out a range of native species. They’re all from local seedstock, except for the Scots pine, which are from Caledonian stock in the central Highlands.  Mostly rowan, alder, oak and birch, with a few pine. Some die, some do well but I don’t use tubes or stakes, so a higher mortality rate is to be expected. I have landowners permission for one area and not for others.

Unrelated, but driving through Torridon yesterday was a delight; the regeneration is gaining momentum, presumably having reached a stage where natural seed distribution has begun. It’s happening in lots of places now…

The other thing to consider is a lot of planting is funded or part funded by grants. Whilst you may be allowed to plant anything on a certain patch of land, it’s uneconomical to do so without grants which may only apply to certain trees (IE not ash or elm at the moment)

I’ve planted out a few trees on land I don’t own. Some call it guerilla gardening, I just used it for some trees grown by my kids collecting seeds or root cuttings when we’re out.

A friend did/does this with the local parks, collects acorns, beech nuts etc in autumn and plants them in pots, lets them grow for a year or so in a corner of his garden then don’s high-vis and goes and plants them around the edge of parks and wasteland using waste plastic tubing ‘harvested’ from trees planted on road embankments etc.

He did once get accosted by the actual council but they seemed fine with it once he’d explained what he was doing, their only request was he left a minimum of 2.5m between the tree and any other obstacles so they could get the mowers through.

Spot on @mogrim, it’s Galicia – wet and full of eucalyptus.

It will be interesting to see if he isn’t allowed to plant more of the same. Sounds a good idea to encourage more native species but they are slower growing so I expect the big logging companies will exert pressure on the local govt to allow quicker growing trees allowing them to realise profits sooner.

There are rules about spacing of trees and the need for cleaning the ground between the trees regularly to prevent build up that would easily catch fire. Big fines if you don’t do that.