TWO new tree trails have been launched in Leicester in time for National Tree Week.
The new online guides to the trees in Aylestone Hall Gardens and Knighton Park highlight the parks’ native specimens, such as wild cherry (prunus avium), the common beech (fagus sylvatica) and the common yew (taxus baccata), as well as dozens of non-native and exotic trees, including the Persian ironwood (parrotia persica), the handkerchief tree (davidia involucrata) and the dawn redwood (metasequoia glyptostroboides).
Visitors will be able to download the trails, turning their visit into a guided tour of the trees that grace the two popular parks.
In Aylestone Hall Gardens, eagle-eyed tree spotters will find the common prickly ash (zanthoxylum americanum) – a small tree whose aromatic leaves and berries were used by Native Americans to alleviate toothache – while in Knighton Park, visitors can look for the maidenhair tree (ginkgo biloba), an ancient species that’s been in existence for more than 250 million years.
The new guides are the latest in a series of tree trails, which have been redesigned by Leicester’s volunteer tree wardens in partnership with the city council’s trees and woodlands team.
Assistant city mayor Cllr Vi Dempster said: “National Tree Week is the perfect opportunity for us to celebrate the trees in our city and to thank our volunteers and tree wardens who do so much to help us maintain and improve Leicester’s tree stock.
“Thanks to their dedication, we now have a series of much-improved tree trails, with each trail taking visitors on a journey of discovery as they find out interesting facts about the trees in our parks.
“These two new trails bring the total number of tree trails in the series to 10, with more to follow in the new year.
“I hope visitors will enjoy exploring all of our parks, guided by the detailed information that they’ll find in our online trails, and discover more about the magnificent trees in our city.”
The two new tree trails can be downloaded at leicester.gov.uk/tree-trails
Online tree trails are also available for Abbey Park, Castle Gardens, Castle Hill Country Park, Evington Park, Humberstone Park, Spinney Hill Park, Victoria Park and Western Park.
National Tree Week runs from 22-30 November this year and marks the start of the winter planting season.
Tomorrow (Wednesday 26 November), volunteer tree wardens and members of the Friends of Castle Hill Country Park will team up with the city council’s trees & woodlands team to plant a new community orchard.
Forty fruit trees – including apples, pears, plums and damsons – will be planted on the park to celebrate the 40 years that it’s been in existence.
Once complete, the site will become the sixth community orchard in the park.
Between now and the end of March 2026, the city council will plant more than 2,300 trees at various sites around the city. Species to be planted will be predominantly British native, but more exotic species will also be planted at suitable locations where they will add to the biodiversity of the area.
There will be a new woodland planted at Aylestone Playing Fields, where 1,600 small trees will be planted as part of the Woodland Trust’s MOREwoods scheme, while 180 trees will be planted at Keepers Lodge Park in Beaumont Leys to replace the ash trees lost to ash dieback disease. There will also be 58 new highway trees, thanks to Local Transport Grant funding, while 30 new trees will be planted on Victoria Park to replace the sycamores lost to sooty bark disease.
Tree canopy covers around 16% of the city, with the city council managing a tree stock of over 189,000 individual trees and 113 hectares of woodland.
This includes trees in parks and open spaces, on highway verges, on housing estates, within the grounds of schools, and around community facilities.
Picture caption: Cllr Vi Dempster (second left) marks National Tree Week by joining volunteer tree wardens and city council staff to plant a foxglove tree in Belgrave Gardens. The tree will be part of a brand new tree trail that will be available in the new year.