Menu
More Trees Now rescues disadvantaged seedlings for a second chance elsewhere. On harvest days, these saplings and shrubs are harvested. Sometimes these are collected directly by people who want to plant, but often this is logistically impossible and they go to a Tree Hub.
The season runs from 1 November to 1 March, with an extension to 15 March if the trees are not all distributed. During this period, the trees are dormant so you can safely move them.
Harvesting is the first step in the More Trees Now process and also the most important one. After all, if you don’t harvest, you can’t plant. Logical! We are so glad you want to help us harvest and start rescue saplings with us!
More Trees Now harvests bountiful amounts of seedlings, cuttings, shrubs and saplings in diverse locations. From forests to parks and demolition areas. You always need permission from the site manager to harvest saplings.
You can find harvest sites by writing to the local forester or park keeper of the municipality. Ready made letters you can find in the communication toolkit! If you do not know who owns the site, you may contact your local council or search the national property registry. Foresty owners may also sign up their location with the Tree Planner, stating one can harvest there but they will not be taking the initiative to organise something on the harvest site. You can always try sending a message to an already existing harvest site in the Tree Planner if you organise something together.
Always engage with the forester or groundsman. It is good to discuss the harvest day and assure the forester that the area will be treated with respect. We only remove what is allowed (which helps the area!) and we don’t leave any dirt or holes. You can also ask about practical matters, such as parking instructions, toilets and shelter in bad weather.
It is useful to review any upcoming maintenance plans; is a site schedules to be mowed or cleared? You might have chance to save some saplings before that happens.
After discussing with the site manager which seedlings can be harvested, it is important to talk about risks. Do certain diseases live in the area? If so, it might be best to stay away from from that area altogether, find out how to recognise the disease, and/or you could suggest that before any sapling is definitively taken away for replanting, the forester does a final check.
Are you going to work in several areas and need to make a choice in terms of harvesting?
Then take a look at which varieties or species are there.
Pioneer species are abundant and most commonly harvested. Think maples, willows, alders and birches. Maples are plentiful at any given time, you may choose to switch and focus on some other species or sites if you have plenty of those. Some sought-after species are: Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Elder, Buckthorn Trees and Hazel. Note that we only harvest what is otherwise cut or actually in excess. If there is only one Hawthorn in the area, and it has a good chance to mature there, then of course it stays there! If you have multiple sites and one has plenty of maple, while the other has a variety of elder and hazel, you might choose to prioritise the second site.
Have you found a new harvest site? Great! Then register it in the Tree Planner. With this, you call up volunteers, planting locations and register which trees have been rescued and planted in which place. Also enter any information you have discussed with the forester. Do you already have a Tree Planner account? Then go to harvesting locations and click on ‘add location’ at the top right.
Creator of the More Trees Now transplanting method Franke van der Laan does ‘ecological green management’. He removes part of the emerging seedlings (shoot). These seedlings are in disadvantaged places: in the shade or in a growth spot that does not suit the tree species. Special but slow-growing seedlings that Franke wants to promote, he protects by removing strong and fast-growing seedlings around them. Harvesting relatively few seedlings in a small space is minimally soil disruptive because it is close to ecological processes. We deliberately do not harvest more seedlings, because that way you remove a generation of trees from a given area, and with it biodiversity disappears. Properly practising ecological green space management actually enhances biodiversity in the area. This does require a bit more knowledge. Interested? Drop by a Franke van der Laan harvest day to see how!
Volunteers coming to harvest are eager to get started! To get started, they do need a few things. Make sure the following materials are present on a harvest day. Of course, you don’t have to arrange this on your own! Many items are provided by the region coordinators, volunteers can bring their own or you may have some yourself.
For a harvest day, you will need the following materials:
You have chosen your harvest site, you’ve discussed and agreed the conditions of the harvest day with the site manager, and you have gathered (most of your materials). It is time to pick a date and plan the day!
In the Tree Planner, you go to your harvest location, Click add event, and choose a date and time. Here you also fill in the arrangements with the forester and indicate your own preferences: how many volunteers do you want at most? Should people bring their own lunch? An outline is ready in the Tree Planner as soon as you create your event, but be sure to adjust the text yourself.
Once volunteers sign up, they will receive all the information you have filled in, to be as complete as possible. Finally, in the event, you can see a list of all volunteers who signed up. You will also find their contact details here. Through the Tree Planner, you can also send volunteers a message with updates, or start a conversation in the chat that is automatically formed with all volunteers from your event.
In the list of volunteers, you can also see information the volunteers have left for you. They may have indicated they own their own spade, pruning shears, wheelbarrow, a trailer they can bring or if they want to aid the organisation of the event. You may send them a message and ask them to bring certain items or perform a particular task, such as chauffeuring the trees to the next location.
There are two options: planting locations sign up to your event to pick up the trees immediately (you can choose when you create your event how many people can sign up for this), or they go to a Tree Hub. This is the case for most days. It is wise to arrange this in advance. To do this, contact a Tree Hub and/or a (large) planting location near your harvest location. Go to step 5 for more explanation!
Every Wednesday evening at 6pm CET, all people who are registered in the Tree Planner will receive a message containing all the events currently scheduled in the Tree Planner. The Tree Planner maintains a radius of 25 kilometres.
When creating an event in the Tree Planner, you automatically generate a sign-up link of the event. In most cases some promotion is neccessary to have enough volunteers. Anyone, already in the Tree Planner system or not, can sign up to your event through this link. Try sharing it with your own network, family, friends and social media. You can also write to local newspapers, or environmental groups, nature groups, associations, schools or other groups in your neighbourhood.
Is the influx of volunteers still a bit slow? Then consult with the forester or the organisation. Perhaps there is too much competition with other days in the area or there are not that many volunteers in your region yet. We can work on that together.
The time has come! Your event has been created, the volunteers have signed up, and you are almost ready to get started. Now let’s save some trees!
Welcome |
Explain the More Trees Now method to the participants. Also consider inviting the owner, of forester to give an introduction about the terrain you'll be saving saplings from. |
|---|---|
Let's get started! |
Volunteers start scooping out the saplings, or start taking cuttings from overgrown bushes. The organiser occasionally walks around to answer questions. |
Optional: Break for tea! |
Depending on how long your event is, have one or two breaks. Does everyone understand how it works? Bring a thermos of tea and possibly some sweets to pass around. |
Break |
Have a lunchbreak or a second break, depending on the length of your event. Give an explanation about how to sort, bundle and lable the rescued saplings. Split up the volunteers, some can start the former, and another group to keep harvesting. |
Final sprint |
Now that everyone is a practiced harvester surpeme, you can really get those numbers up. Let's save as many as you can! |
Ending the day |
When all the saplings are bundled and labelled, load them into the vehicle that will take them to the Tree Hub or planting location, or heel them in. As you put the bundles of saplings in the trench or trailer, count the amount of saplings you save.Register this in the app, or write it down to put into the Tree Planner later. Or agree with the Tree Hub that they register this bunch. Tidy up the site, do not leave any mess or holes, and don't forget to thank your volunteers! |
It is helpful if you get there a bit earlier than the volunteers. Place the flag or other recognisable object along the road or at the assembly point so that everyone knows where to go. Put on a vest so that it is clear that you are the point of contact.
Are the volunteers present? Get to know them and have them briefly introduce themselves to each other. Then you can ask some questions and name points of interest.
You harvest according to the arrangements made with the forester. Make sure volunteers who are there for the first time are mixed with the more experienced volunteers. Go and harvest yourself, but also walk around regularly and check that everything is going well. Are holes plugged and tamped down? Are seedlings safely laid down and sorted? Meanwhile, take a few photos.
It is a good idea to demonstrate the harvesting of a seedling. Scoop a circle around the seedling, about a foot from the stem. Use your spade as a lever – it’s less stressful on your back! Pry the seedling loose and shake it out. After all, there is no need for a big clod! We leave the forest, estate or park (even) more beautiful than we found it. We therefore carefully prick out the seedlings and leave the most beautiful ones.
We harvest seedlings of between 50 and 150 centimetres, as these have the best chance of survival. We only remove trees that cannot grow into a large tree at that location or are undesirable for other reasons. So big trees are better left standing! These do not survive transplanting as well.
Cuttings are also welcome! You can stick a branch of a Willow, Poplar, Elder, Butterfly bush or Fig into the ground, after which a new tree or shrub can grow.
It is always wise to protect the roots right away. Collect your seedlings in large bundles (perhaps directly by species, see also sorting, step 4). Roots can dry out in the sun and wind. Place them sheltered, in the shade, keeping something covering the roots. This can be leaves, a tarpaulin, a jute bag or an old towel. You can moisten this old towel or burlap sack. If there is a stream nearby, you can also temporarily put the seedlings’ roots there.
During the breaks, take stock of how the volunteers are doing; what is difficult, what is going well? This is also the time to walk through bundling, labelling, counting and recording (step 4). All seedlings should be bundled in bunches of 20 to 50 per bunch. That way, they are easy to count and transport. People who are tired of harvesting can already start this work. While leaving the bundles on the trailer, you can count the bundles and enter them straight into the More Trees Now app; don’t forget to fill in what the trailer’s destination is. And at the end of the day, don’t forget to say a huge thank you to everyone! Before leaving, take a tour of the site and make sure it is left tidy (no holes in the ground, no rubbish, materials are tidy).
Around the lunch break, or at the end of the harvest day, you may assemble a team to sort, bundle and count the seedlings.
Even if you can recognise trees well, sorting can be a challenge. In winter the saplings have o leafs, so one can only recognise the saplings using the buds. So we recommend using a bud chart, which makes it easy to recognise the most common species. Often, the manager of the harvesting location will tell you which species can be removed that day. So focus on just a few species, that makes it a lot clearer! If you focus on 3 species, you also only have to recognise 3 species.
Or check out some of these publicly available videos on the identification of UK and Irish Trees in winter time!
You tie the seedlings in numbers of 20, or any other steady number of saplings. This will make counting the final tally easy. Bundle the saplings with the roots at the same height, to make heeling in easy.
You do this with as little rope as possible. Work as follows:
Once you have bundled and labelled the species, you can tally and record them. You can do this in the More Trees Now app. Here, you indicate on the spot, which species and what quantity you will give to which place (a planting location, a Tree Hub or a volunteer). Not so keen on apps? You can also keep track of this in a notebook, and enter it in the Tree Planner at home at the end of the day.
Your harvested seedlings have been counted, bundled and sorted. Now they may go to their next destination!
Once you’ve bundled and sorted all your little trees, they need to go somewhere.
Planting locations can register for a harvest day in the Tree Planner. That way, as many trees and shrubs as possible are collected immediately. Often volunteers also take a tree with them.
Sometimes it is a few planting locations that show interest. Should you be in a position to give a lot of attention to your harvest day, for instance on social media, you may find that many planting locations appear at the end of the day. Consider the possibilities in advance. Planting locations can apply for a time slot in the last few hours of your harvest day, for which you can set a maximum number of collectors.
You can also contact them yourself: in the Tree Planner, you can see all the planting locations in your area on the map. Pick the biggest ones and send them a message: would they like to take all your harvest in one go? That saves transport and ensiling.
NB. Be careful which seedling you hand out to whom. Do not give a seedling that could grow 30 metres tall to someone with a balcony. An average harvest day usually involves around 10 species, so a quick google search will show you what type of trees you have in your hand!
A Tree Hub is a gathering place for excess saplings. They are stored, taken care of, and re-distributed. This way, they get a second chance. Read more about Tree Hubs.
It is always a good idea to contact a nearby Tree Hub when you plan your harvest day, because anything that does get picked up directly by planting sites, these saplings need to be given a safe place. Heeling in can be quite a job, so always ask your volunteers if they can come to the Tree Hub to help with this.
If you do not have a tow bar behind your car, it is important to agree with the Tree Hub how the harvest will get there: if the Tree Hub does not come to collect it, a driver must be arranged from the volunteers. Volunteers indicate whether they also want to be drivers and whether they have a tow bar, just as they indicate they have a spade. Many Tree Hubs may have their own trailers.
If there is no Tree Hub to collect the trees on the same day, consult with the forester: can we dig a trench at the edge near the car park for the day’s harvest? Then perhaps it can be collected later by a planting site or Tree Hub.
