What is The Queen's Green Canopy?

Are you up for planting a tree to celebrate next year's Jubilee? That's the aim of The Queen's Green Canopy – a project to dramatically increase the number of trees being planted and all to commemorate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee coming in 2022. Yes, that's an incredible 70 years on the throne.

After all, next year (in the UK) an extra bank holiday will be created and the traditional May bank holiday weekend will be moved to the start of June, to create a special four-day Jubilee weekend. So there's no excuse not to get out there and get busy!

The campaign was announced as part of the Virtual Chelsea 2021 show in a video from The Prince of Wales, patron of the project. Here's his video from the event.

The campaign plans to create new networks of trees, tree-lined avenues, copses and woodlands, plus in addition to the invitation and encouragement to plant new trees, existing woodland will also be dedicated to the Queen through commemorative plaques placed to mark the occasion and preserve forests for the future, in The Queen’s name.

The Queen’s Green Canopy is an independent initiative led by an Executive Team drawn from individuals seconded from across Government and the charity, Cool Earth. The Chief Executive is Colonel Dan Rex MVO. The Chairman of the QGC Board is Sir Nicholas Bacon. The team is supported by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and a comprehensive Advisory Board.

Naturally RHS Chelsea will be taking part in the Queen’s Green Canopy with further details to be announced soon. And here, Alan Titchmarsh talks to former RHS President Sir Nicholas Bacon about the importance of the project.