“I Want Our Descendants To Have Trees Around Them”: Why Rod Believes In Planting For The Future

Rod Thorn, joined by one of the Project’s regular feline visitors

In honour of National Tree Week we met with Rod Thorn, passionate horticulturalist and member of the Elmbridge Tree Wardens. Our team members Karen, Amy, and Tom headed down to Walton Charity’s Tree Canopy Project to learn more about Rod, and what motivates him to plant trees across Elmbridge.

Branching Out

Elmbridge Tree Wardens work across the borough to get trees and hedges planted, alongside surveying and preserving our existing trees—making vital contributions to the area’s biodiversity.

Rod’s interest in the project has a spiritual origin. “My first keen interest in trees was understanding them from a Druidry perspective—trees are obviously important to them. It’s kind of grown within me over the past fifteen years.”

Being part of the Elmbridge Tree Wardens was a way of exploring this passion, whilst also contributing something tangible for present and future generations. “I want our descendants to have trees around them”, Rod says; “the feel of those tall beings” is something which everyone should have the opportunity to experience.

Rod with Karen Heynike, Walton Charity’s Green Spaces Manager

Tree’s Company

During his time with the Tree Wardens, this interest has only grown stronger. Rod is clear on just how essential trees are to all our lives, not least due to climate change. A typical mature tree can absorb a hefty 22kg of carbon dioxide per year. Though, given that each person in the UK leaves a carbon footprint of roughly 10 tonnes in this time, it would take a shocking 450 mature trees to offset the annual emissions of one person.

Frost settles over the Tree Canopy Project’s herb garden

Trees can benefit our wellbeing in other ways, too. They can “provide shade and air conditioning in extreme weather, and potentially even help with flood risk if planted correctly.” As many Elmbridge residents will attest, something as simple as a walk in the woods can help reduce the day’s stress, and even help with anxiety and depression.

Putting Down Roots

On the morning we interviewed Rod, he was hard at work planting the Tree Canopy Project’s newest additions: two wild pear trees.

According to Rod, these wild pear saplings were “grown from seeds taken from a wild pear tree growing by the Royal Cambridge Home in Molesey. It’s an old tree, and wild pears in general are quite rare.”

Easing one of the wild pear saplings into a planting hole

For anyone excited to sample a wild pear, however, you may want to think twice. The grown trees will “produce lovely blossom and... very hard, inedible fruits.” 

Pining For Adventure?

Surrey is England’s most wooded county, and so Elmbridge Tree Wardens are never short of work. Rod has previously participated in a “seed collection event, where we went with volunteers to Esher Commons, collected chestnuts and acorns, and planted them.”

Regular goings-on also include donations from people who may have a potted tree they don’t know what to do with, which are taken to the Warden’s dedicated tree nursery prior to planting.

Given that over 60 different native trees can be found in the UK, does Rod have a personal favourite?

“It changes, but I think at the moment I’m very much a fan of beech trees—they have such lovely leaves in the autumn. I go to a beech forest, and it’s just marvellous.”

To learn more about joining the Elmbridge Tree Wardens, visit https://www.surreytreewardens.org.uk/members/elmbridge/, contact info@surreytreewardens.org.uk or follow them on Facebook.

Interview by Tom Walden, Walton Charity’s Policy and Communications Manager