A blog by Mel Sutton

Learn about the healing power of trees and how trees can help you to find calm in your busy day. Join Mel for Meditation with Trees every morning of the Festival.

A blog from Sustainable Life Birmingham

A free online tree identification walk around Ten Acres Park and Woodland in Stirchley Birmingham and some complimentary kids activity pages. Learn how to identify trees in spring and more.

A blog by Hayley Kinsey.

Let me tell you something that will blow your mind: trees are incredibly social. They communicate with each other, they share with each other, and they support each other.

We invited people to send in poetry and prose on the theme of “trees close to you” in a competition to win a spot in Canopy the illustrated chapbook anthology of nature writing that supports the Urban Tree Festival through sale proceeds, that is published by Sampson Low Publishers. Today we announce the long list!

entangle/embrace by Claudia Molitor is a new project that will become an outdoor and online performance event, taking place around, and inspired by trees. For the project's first research event we want to hear from you about your stories connected to either specific trees or a tree species. You can share your stories with us at the public ‘entangling’ of a score around a tree, or e-mail us your story.

A guest post by Alex Mair

The Lucas Gardens Tree Trail is a 30 - 45 minute self guided tree walk. You’ll learn of tree species from across the globe, from China to the American Deep South. While we may be unable to travel abroad we can experience nature from across the world in Lucas Gardens.

A guest blog from Trees4Grenfell

Trees4Grenfell CIC is an environmentally progressive group of people tackling urban pollution hotspots of pollution. We also aim to plant as many trees as we can to honour the victims, survivors community and all who suffered even by watching the tragedy of Grenfell fire.

A guest blog by Polly Read

Aesthetic and environmental aesthetics notes about trees.

A guest blog by Caro Jones.

Exploring the ancient woodland of Epping Forest and the sprawling waterways of Hollow Ponds is good, for the soul whatever time of the year. And in the extraordinary year of 2020, the forest and ponds bordering London and Essex provided me with a place of tranquility and calm amongst the chaos of the outside world.

A guest blog by Liberty Rowley of Mall Galleries

Trees let us breathe, spending time with them is good for our mental health and may even make us kinder, so it's only right we celebrate them in paint.

A guest post from Julian Pooley

It was chance that led me to contact Andrew Stuck in April 2020. I spotted his online request for expressions of interest in contributing to a virtual Urban Tree Festival during Lockdown and wondered whether my short talk about trees in landscape and memory in the Surrey archive might be relevant…

A guest blog from Edinam Edem-Jordjie

Edinam is the New Museum School Trainee at the National Trust, based within the London Creative Team & Garden and Outdoors Team at Morden Hall Park.

The Urban Tree Festival’s Paul Wood talks to tree-inspired musician, performer and singer Phoebe Coco.

A blog post from Robin Walter

The web of life is often worn thin in our towns and cities – fewer plants and animals are spread over hard surfaces resistant to the creep of nature; the normal cycling of water, air and nutrients is interrupted by hot tarmac, unyielding concrete and a cocktail of pollution. Yet four out of five of us live in towns and cities – no wonder as a culture we feel cut off from the natural world!

A blog post by Peter Coles
Out of the eight million or so trees in Greater London (including woods and parks), most are under 100 years old. About 6,000 (0.00075%) have been labelled as ‘landmark’ trees, because of their “significant size, age or setting”.

Although the Urban Tree Festival of 2020 has finished, it left all of us with plenty of amazing activities to do during lockdown. Live events are over now, but you know that you can always go to the UTF website and enjoy a variety of things you didn’t have the time to experience during the festival. One of those things is an app called TreeTalk, which lets you create your own tree trails around London.

The Neighbouring Orchard is a new project by artist Annie Lord for Art Walk Porty – an art festival based in Portobello, a coastal suburb of Edinburgh. The project was launched in May 2020 and will create a network of socially distanced apple trees in front gardens and shared gardens, linking together different neighbourhoods and communities. Each of the trees will be a variety which has historically been grown in the area.

Forest Talk Radio is a ‘GPS-triggered audio experience that brings you into the world of trees’ produced by award-winning Canadian David Merleau.

Geoff Sample is a contributor to Urban Tree Festival, who specialises in bird song and natural soundscapes recording.

A guest blog from Rob McBride aka the Tree Hunter & #TreesFromWindows