THIS autumn 300,000 children in schools and youth groups across the UK are being given free tree saplings to plant in their school playgrounds and community spaces by the Woodland Trust.

The Woodland Trust is a charity working towards the conservation of woodland in the UK and, along with Sainsbury’s Active Kids, they’ve already given out 10,000 hedge and copse packs, each containing 30 saplings to be planted.

The free packs include either native hedge trees including; hawthorn, hazel holly, dogrose and dogwood, or 30 native copse trees including; birch, rowan and wild cherry.

The Trust’s hedge and copse scheme launched in 2004 and  is a great way for you to find out about the local environment and how you can support and nuture it – plus get your hands dirty!

Thanks to the Trust, children in the UK have planted 194 miles of hedgerows so far – that’s the distance from London to Leeds. And, including this year’s saplings,  a whopping 1.5 million trees will have been planted directly from the packs.

If you want to get planting at your school, visit www.treeforall.org.uk/joinin