YOU probably already guessed that Frosty won’t be writing much about the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee this year. I might return to her favourite son, Andrew, aka the defendant, aka the dirty old Duke of York, but not much about old Queenie herself.

However, I have got a bit of space to mention one thing that is happening to mark 70 years on the throne.  The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC) is a tree planting initiative created to mark the anniversary.  

All across the country, we are all being encouraged to plant one or more trees and that has to be a good thing. Working with many commercial sponsors and the Woodland Trust local groups and organisations can even apply for free trees and planting kits.

The plan is to establish something called the Queen’s Green Canopy, a network of individual trees, avenues, copses and whole woodlands all over the country and that can only be a good thing.

Trees bring all sorts of benefits, not just to the appearance of our green and pleasant land, but for ordinary people, wildlife and climate, now and for the future.

Planting more trees for any reason, royal sycophancy or just making our world a little more pleasant, is important for trees are always under threat from building development to the many and various diseases often specific to a particular tree.

You may have read about Dutch elm disease, the oak processionary moth and ash dieback, which have changed the whole shape and colour of our native hedgerows, woodlands and forests.

Did you know there are 58,497 individual species of tree to be found around the world? It will probably be 58,498 by the time you read this as intrepid plant hunters are still out there noting and collecting in still to be explored rainforests and similar exotic locations.

The saddest news, however, is that of those nearly 60,000 species no less than a third (perhaps 17,500 individual species) are at risk of extinction. Amazingly, that is double the worldwide number of threatened mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles added together; frightening thought isn’t it?

An organisation called Botanic Garden Conservation International (BGCI) has published a report called The State of the World’s Trees. The report took over five years to complete and the picture it paints is gloomy indeed.

It lists over 400 species of trees with less than 50 individual living survivors. In case you think these will all be in exotic far-flung locations, one is in our own back garden as it were.

The Menai Strait whitebeam (Sorbus arvonensis in Latin, Cerddin Menai in Welsh) is struggling to survive on the north Wales coast.

Almost all of these now very rare Menai whitebeam trees are growing on the sea’s edge only 33 feet from the usual high tide mark. However the usual high tide level is moving up as a result of storms, coastal erosion and the climate catastrophe.

Just as the trees need the natural surroundings to protect them from extinction, in return the north Wales coast needs the whitebeams to protect it particularly from further erosion.

Tree enthusiasts, including Robbie Blackhall-Miles who runs what he calls a “backyard botanic garden” called FossilPlants quite near where the Menai whitebeams grow, take the same line as the report. “The most effective way to save any tree is to preserve and protect the areas in which the tree grows naturally.”

One example of this approach working well is Haiti’s Magnolia ekmanii that is now growing well in a private natural forest reserve that has been created to save the tree.

Collecting seeds to be carefully planted near the parent trees as well as sending those seeds to far-off botanical gardens for growing on also works.

One candidate for the title of the world’s rarest tree — Karomia gigas — is a tall and straight species, perfect for timber. It was once grown in the coastal forests of Kenya and Tanzania but grossly over-harvested.  

It was thought to have become extinct but the BGCI project found two small stands totalling less than 30 trees. The coastal forests where it grew have also been heavily degraded and many areas cleared completely for agriculture and coastal tourism development.

Seed production is low, and the trees are attacked by fungus. There is no formal protection in place, and the remaining trees rely solely on the efforts of local community members and forest guards.

Now collected seeds have produced a flowering tree in the Missouri Botanical Gardens in the US, where in time new trees will be planted in Africa.

Likewise, The Royal Horticultural Society in Britain has collected seed – with permission or course. Some will be planted with better sea protection close to where existing trees grow and other seed will be planted in various botanical gardens including the National Botanical Garden of Wales.  

The Menai whitebeam isn’t our only British native tree near to extinction. Other localised whitebeams too are under serious threat to the point that the Botanical Garden of Wales has established a whitebeam grove to preserve and protect many of the rare and threatened whitebeams that have been found in Wales.  

Also in Wales, a group of what might be Britain’s rarest tree – the black poplar (Populus nigra ssp betulifolia) — has been discovered in a lay-by alongside a busy main road.

One of the rarest of our trees is the black poplar, an inhabitant of floodplains and wet ditches and once a common sight in the countryside. John Constable’s familiar painting The Hay Wain of 1821 shows black poplar trees growing alongside a meandering river.

Today the black poplar is very scarce, with only 10,000 specimens left in the wild. Now 14 previously unknown black poplars, each about 150 years old, have been identified in the hedgerow alongside the A525 Denbigh to Ruthin road near the village of Rhewl.

Even if you can’t do anything yourself to preserve very threatened trees, most of us can plant a tree or organise the planting of one. One good friend of mine has a windowsill of old yoghurt pots, each with a tiny sapling tree poking out.

He collects seeds and acorns and plants them in his windowsill arboretum. Some seeds are collected on country walks, other more exotic ones like avocado, tangerines, plums, cherries, apples, pears and even peaches are nicked from the fruit bowl.

He calls them all his bonsai babies. Some die, some grow so big he has to give them away for others to grow on in their gardens. All of them give him endless delight and the restricted root growth allowed by the tiny yoghurt pots mean many of them stay bonsai size for a good few years.  
       
To finish I’d just like to say that I’m not usually much in favour of royalty, but I do have one exception. In my opinion there are some kings and queens who fully deserve our respect and their honoured position and all the assistance we can give them.

They are of course our wonderful trees, queens and kings of our countryside woodlands.