ZOE HILL: If I collect just say a hundred grams of something,

that can be 2,000 future trees. In 20 years time I can collect

from those and those 2,000 trees can become 200,000 trees.

ROSIE HOLDSWORTH: Welcome to Wild Voices, a special series

from Wild Tales of inspiring conversations about people,

nature and the stories that connect us. It's often said that

trees are the lungs of the planet. And as the impacts of

climate change become increasingly visible, their

importance has never been greater.

In this episode of Wild Voices, Ajay Tegala is joined by Zoe

Hill, the National Trust's Tree Nursery Officer, to discover

what it takes to care for 50,000 tree saplings, how she's helping

to create a more climate-resilient landscape, and

what we can all do to help trees thrive.

AJAY TEGALA: Hello and welcome to another Wild Voices episode

of Wild Tales. I'm Ajay Tegala, Nature Communicator and National

Trust Ranger on Britain's very first nature reserve, Wicken

Fen, and today I'm experiencing another first. I'm in the studio

chatting with Zoe Hill, the National Trust's first and only

Tree Nursery Officer. Hi Zoe, how are you doing?

ZOE HILL: Yeah, not bad thank you. Yourself?

AJAY TEGALA: Very well, thank you very much. Very excited to

talk to you. And I thought I'd start with asking you really,

what is being a Tree Nursery Officer really like?

ZOE HILL: You know what, it's very unique, you know, my job

revolves so much around kind of what's going on in the

environment. You know, I spend a lot of my time kind of, I go

out, I propagate, I kind of grow on and I supply.

And so being able to kind of do that is just, it's one of the

most incredible jobs.

AJAY TEGALA: I gather you were a gardener before this so is that

where your propagation love began?

ZOE HILL: Yeah so I worked on a kind of semi-private estate

managing kind of 10 acres of grounds with the team and we did

a lot of annual bedding displays and when I was training we did a

lot of propagation on those and I kind of I just fell in love

with being able to just kind of create something from like one

specimen and so you know I kind of took that love of being able

to grow a couple thousand geraniums.

And then I saw a job for a Tree Nursery Officer and I was like,

wow, I can do that for trees too. And it kind of just like

got the cogs turning in my brain of being able to go like, okay,

I can propagate more and more things. And then I was able to

then place all these little different bits together.

AJAY TEGALA: And for people that may not be familiar with the

term propagation, how would you describe that?

ZOE HILL: I kind of describe it as a way of being able to

reproduce a plant. You can do it so many different ways. You can

do it by seed, you can do it by cuttings, you can do it with a

leaf. There's so many different ways to be able to propagate a

plant. It's almost, you know, it's like having plant babies in

a way.

You're able to then create kind of that genetic matchup of

material. You know, a lot of times you see the 50% of the

parent plant if it's a seed or, you know, you're taking 100% of

the genetic material if it's a cutting. And so you're able to

kind of directly pass on a lineage of a plant in a way.

AJAY TEGALA: That's amazing. Tell me about your office

because it's a tree nursery what does that look like?

ZOE HILL: My office so to speak is all outside I have a really

nice shade tunnel which enables me to grow a range of species

with a kind of certain level of protection. I have outdoor

growing beds which I can grow kind of in the region of 30,000

trees just out in the open in soil that we kind of work, we

manicure, we tailor to the trees we want to grow.

And then I also have like outdoor growing areas where I

have kind of specialised air pruning pots that we sow our

seed into and we can grow those out in those pots.

And that gives the rangers like a perfect way of planting those

saplings because they're so easy. They're kind of a one inch

cell that's maybe 20 centimetres long. They can take out a bundle

of 100 and plant really easily.

AJAY TEGALA: And how many trees are we talking about? What sort

of numbers are involved?

ZOE HILL: So in the nursery we went through this other day, we

currently have 41 different species of tree on site.

And currently we have 50,000 trees in the nursery. And with

that, we're talking maybe 20,000 of those going out this year and

then a further 20 going out next year. And kind of that revolving

cycle.

AJAY TEGALA: And are there any particular species that you

particularly love and that you're excited about?

ZOE HILL: See, it's... There's a bit of like, because I was

speaking to my volunteers about this the other day, and we were

all talking about like, oh, you know, trees you remember from

your childhood. And one none of us mentioned was spindle. And

yet in an environment now, we love spindle.

It's a tree, large shrub kind of thing. And this time of year,

it's got lovely pink fruits, which on the inside have the

orange kind of seeds. And it's just none of us can remember

seeing it as a child. And yet as an adult, they're just so

amazing.

AJAY TEGALA: I was the same. I think I first learnt it when I

was probably a teenager. Someone pointed it out. And it's great

for birds, isn't it? Great food source for them.

ZOE HILL: Yeah, it's just like... You know, you can see it

now. Every time you look in a hedgerow, you spot it, you know.

It's amongst the blackthorn, it's amongst the hawthorn, you

know. And it just, it stands out. It just catches your eye.

AJAY TEGALA: That's the lovely thing when you get to know more

species. You start to spot them, don't you, in the wild. Yeah.

But of course, with you propagating them and sort of

caring for them, that must be quite a big responsibility,

actually.

ZOE HILL: It kind of really is in a way, you know. You almost

really take ownership of them. Sometimes you think, okay, I'm

growing 3,000 of this. Even if you get kind of 10 that don't

happen to kind of succeed as well, there is this kind of

level of like, oh, really frustrating.

But also it's amazing because, you know, if I collect just say

100 grams of something, that can be 2,000 future trees. And then

I'll say, okay, we'll plant out those 2,000 trees. In 20 years

time, I can collect... From those and those 2,000 trees can

become 200,000 trees.

AJAY TEGALA: Yeah so you're playing a small but huge part

actually in history really with things that could live for well

hundreds of years to come potentially. Yeah. And so what

is perhaps one of the most precious seeds that you've

collected in your time?

ZOE HILL: I think it's probably going to have to go with some of

the white beams. I'm in an area where we don't particularly have

many and you know They're a little bit more on the kind of

pickier side to propagate.

I personally haven't managed to do it very well, but I know

there's people that specialise in it. Whitebeams have so many

cultivars as well. You know, we've got local ones to us like

odometer, which is named because it's a sorbus near a car park

meter, hence why it's called odometer.

And then you've got things like chedorensis, which is on the

Cheddar Gorge, which is just up the road from us. And so I'm

kind of trying to work with those and try and start

propagating those and it's almost like a challenge

AJAY TEGALA: Yeah yeah and this is obviously Somerset so that's

where you're based the Holnicote Estate?

ZOE HILL: Yes yes on Holnicote so Holnicote very unique you

know with 12 and a half thousand acres with almost like a mosaic

of habitat you know we've got salt marshes we've got temperate

rainforest we've got our riparian habitats, you know

we've got kind of coastland, heathland, you know I have the

most unlimited choice to go select our seed from.

AJAY TEGALA: Amazing. And so supplying them obviously for the

estate and for other people is how it works. Is there kind of

quite a wide audience of people these trees are going to?

ZOE HILL: So at the moment, we're just supplying our estate.

But as the nursery progresses through its kind of development

phases, the ambition is we'll start supplying some of our

wider Somerset properties, whether that's our Quantocks and

our Mendips or local kind of other National Trust sites. But

we're also working with our tenant farmers.

The hope is to start supplying hedging packs, fruit trees for

them to plant. And so we'll graft our fruit trees in the

nursery as well. And those will be from local varieties that we

can then kind of put out for our tenants to create orchards.

AJAY TEGALA: So it's fantastic there's these opportunities to

expand. But it's kind of mind blowing that actually for one

estate, there's this such a huge number of trees that you're

working with.

ZOE HILL: Absolutely. It's, you know, when we think about a tree

plant in this winter, we're talking one field. And we're

going to put in the region of 8,000 trees in there, it seems

like such a big number. Actually, when you look at it as

a scale, it's actually so small.

And, you know, over time, as we kind of produce more trees, it's

going to be amazing to see how those go out and not into just

our kind of our local environment, but into the wider

environment as well.

AJAY TEGALA: And so before your role came along, presumably the

Trust were sourcing trees from elsewhere, but then they

realised, actually, this is something that we can be doing

ourselves.

ZOE HILL: I'm going to speak from our property personally,

but you know, we were sourcing our trees from some of the other

local nurseries. And what we started to kind of think about

here was actually, where are they getting their trees from?

Sometimes these nurseries, whilst they do grow a lot

themselves, they unfortunately have to buy in their surplus.

And so there's kind of this like ongoing traceability for trees

that we thought was very important for us in kind of

knowing what we're planting is the best of what we could be

planting.

And so that kind of forwarded the movement for us to start

producing our own trees. There was also that carbon thinking

element. With growing trees you don't just think about the

carbon tax to grow them, but it's also kind of the getting

them to us as well.

AJAY TEGALA: And it's quite an incredible job that you're

doing.

But it's not something you do on your own, is it? I'm guessing

that volunteers probably play an important part in supporting

you?

ZOE HILL: Absolutely.

I couldn't do half the work I do without volunteers. We'll go

out, we'll collect seed together. And just that, you

know, we'll spend all day out between one or two woodlands

where we can collect five or six different species. Which we can

then bring back into the nursery. We'll then process all

together and then we stratify them together.

We sew them together. We do everything and they're involved

in the whole process, which I think they really enjoy because

it gives them also a sense of ownership in the kind of

environment that we're creating, not only inside the nursery, but

outside of the nursery as well.

AJAY TEGALA: And I suppose you've got to think about

disease and biosecurity. I suppose that's part of the

consideration as well.

ZOE HILL: Yeah, so that's kind of a big thing in the nursery.

So we're actually the first property in the Trust where our

nursery is plant healthy certified. And that means we've

almost gone above and beyond to become biosecure. It's really

important for us that coming into the nursery, we're not

bringing in any pest diseases or pathogens.

And so we have a very strict kind of cleaning our boots

procedure, making sure that our clothing is clean before we come

in. But we also take that out with us as well. If we go to

collect seed from one woodland, We want to ensure that our boots

are clean before we go in, our tools are clean before we go in.

So we're not spreading anything, not only between woodlands, but

then to and from the nursery either.

AJAY TEGALA: So when your day starts, your first job basically

is to clean your boots then?

ZOE HILL: Pretty much. So I actually have a dedicated pair

of nursery boots that do not leave the nursery. Just because,

you know, it's cleaning your boots every day. It's one of

those things that could slip your mind. And so I take that

error process out of the equation.

AJAY TEGALA: And I suppose biosecurity and not... The

spread of disease is even more of a consideration with climate

change. And so this year, having faced such a serious drought in

the grass, it's been obvious seeing that die and trees losing

their leaves so much earlier. Trees are so important to

combating climate change for so many reasons, aren't they?

ZOE HILL: Yes, yes, absolutely. They enable almost like a cooler

microclimate beneath them. And that not only helps the tree,

but also it helps all the ground floor and things as well.

AJAY TEGALA: And in terms of providing shade, that's really

useful for animals and also for people out walking as well,

isn't it?

ZOE HILL: Absolutely. You know, I saw a study this year where

they took the temperature of tarmac from an area that was

shaded by a tree versus not. And there was almost a 20 degree

difference. And that's kind of, it's a very simple way for us to

see the effect that just a simple tree cover can have, you

know, for us and wildlife.

AJAY TEGALA: That's absolutely incredible. And then also things

that are perhaps harder to see, just how much carbon they're

storing as well and how important it is for us to have

so many more trees.

ZOE HILL: You know, absolutely. You know, it's not just the

carbon they're able to store. You know, we're also talking

about kind of the reduced soil erosion, the flood mitigation

with the increased rainfalls we're seeing in winter. The

trees are able to help mitigate the floods we see with the

ability to take on water, slow the flow of water. Kind of those

kind of things.

AJAY TEGALA: So really trees are just nature's perfect way of

combating climate change and providing what the environment

needs.

ZOE HILL: They're so unique in what they're able to achieve,

but also so broad in what they can do.

AJAY TEGALA: And does climate change have any other big

bearings on your job?

ZOE HILL: Yeah, so there's lots of things that we see now,

especially like I've been in the role for three years. In the

three years, every single season has looked different. When I

look back to last year, trees weren't going dormant in the

nursery until almost December.

That really affects how we manage the nursery. I'm unable

to lift those trees until they've entered dormancy, which

means our rangers here on the ground have a much shorter

planting window.

And so that's kind of affected what I've grown this year. I'm

growing more cell-grown trees, which we can then go plant out

end of November, early November even, rather than our bare

rootstock. And I'm expecting to do that again this year. And

then kind of outside of the nest, we see those effects too,

you know.

Like last year, a lot of people would have worked out, you know,

you looked at an oak last year. It was an incredible mast year.

You know, there was no getting away from it for a lot of tree

species. And then what you're seeing this year is essentially

it's almost like a blank slate. There's nothing, you know.

A lot of these oaks put so much energy into trying to produce

seed last year, they've almost exhausted themselves. And what

we're going to see is more of that. We're going to see trees.

Not really doing a marsh year how they're supposed to. You

know, certain trees will do marsh years biannually.

Some trees do it every five, ten years. And what we're going to

see is they're going to become much more sporadic. You know,

we're not going to be able to predict when that's going to

come. Kind of going to happen.

AJAY TEGALA: So that makes it harder for the trees and harder

for you, I suppose, in managing your work.

ZOE HILL: Now that we're seeing trees seed earlier, what we're

seeing is by winter, a lot of our mammals and birds have a

depreciated food source. We're also going to see is our natural

regeneration of trees becoming much less, you know, a tree seed

needs certain conditions in order to germinate. And with

them seeding earlier.

We're not going to see those kind of conditions in the

environment they're being put into and so what we're going to

see is certain species struggling to get away

afterwards it's hard on the trees what we're seeing here you

know especially like this year if people looked out into their

garden they'll see a beech it's almost got no leaves on now

because they've just suffered so harshly in the drought and what

that also means for me is like this year a lot of our seed

ripened maybe four to six weeks earlier.

I plan my year out in kind of March, I look in my calendar,

I'm like, okay, I'll typically collect seed here, here, here.

And this year, I had to adjust completely, you know, I'd

usually start seed collecting now. I've been seed collecting

for the past six weeks, you know, I'm over halfway through

now. And so the climate change is having a massive effect on

even just the quality of fruit as well. You know, what we're

seeing is things like this year our hazelnuts, a lot of the

viable embryo inside it's not really there it's kind of just

the the drought has just made them suffer essentially.

AJAY TEGALA: When you're propagating you're putting a lot

of care into keeping them alive and helping them to establish

and water is essential for that obviously in the wild drought is

making it really hard how are you combating water shortage in

your role?

ZOE HILL: Water is a is a such a hard one in my role I can't

really put aside that water conservation, you know, these

trees I'm growing need water.

What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to water in the most

conservative way possible. Their rootstock is being watered by

kind of they're like seep hoses. They trickle out a little bit of

water twice a day, which allows the ground to stay moist.

But I'm not oversaturating. I'm not using more than I have to.

And then our kind of our pots are being watered twice a day,

but they're being watered at 6am and 7pm, which allows the least

amount of kind of surface evaporation.

And so whilst I'm still using the same amount of water, I'm

conserving it in a way because it's going to kind of last

longer on our trees.

AJAY TEGALA: Are there any species that are better at

growing in drier conditions that you're perhaps looking to

produce more of now?

ZOE HILL: Yeah, so there's a fair few, you know, we've got

things like our red oaks, they actually do well in kind of the

both extremes, they do okay when they're really wet and

waterlogged, but they also do okay when they're kind of more

droughted, you know, and we're seeing that in our environment

as well, you know, out there this year, while some of our

oaks have looked a little bit worse for wear, the red oaks

have looked very well, you know, they've seeded really well this

year, you know, in the nursery I'm seeing that too.

When you look towards our growing beds this year, the

greenest crops were those red oaks, so those aren't native to

the UK, but they can develop a really climate resilient

woodland in combination with our native trees.

Some people wouldn't have heard of provenance zones, but

essentially that's kind of regions of the UK that are kind

of specified by growers where Somerset is in a 305, we're

quite a southern provenance, we're kind of looking more

south. Sometimes that is just simply towards Cornwall.

Species down there that have been in the wild for a long time

things like our shrubs like our spindle and our older buckthorn

using those to foster our populations. When we're looking

at things like oaks we're looking to more places like

France where for they've been ahead of us in the climate we've

had for 20 30 years you know those trees have been able to

genetically adapt themselves to that and so we're looking more

towards Eastern Europe southern France regions to get our seed

from, to kind of it develop those more drought

characteristics in our seed and what we can do is we can plant

those in a mix in our woodlands and that can help develop a more

resilient long-term mix as they will kind of reproduce with our

local provenance seed and start kind of genetically hardening

almost.

AJAY TEGALA: Ah so you're gradually yeah you're gradually

sort of phasing them in alongside the native species

yeah.

ZOE HILL: Yes yeah.

AJAY TEGALA: And I suppose that that's important for the

wildlife that depends on them as well, being able to have shelter

when needed and also seeds for them to feed on too.

ZOE HILL: Absolutely. You know, that's, it's one of the really

important things with trees, you know, people often think of a

tree as just kind of as itself is just one of these amazing

habitats, but it's also, you know, the food it gives, it's

the shade it's giving, it's kind of the ground stability as well,

you know, on the edge of rivers and stuff. Trees almost lock in

the ground.

AJAY TEGALA: And so, yeah, you mentioned that obviously some of

the hazelnuts aren't so good at the moment. These red oaks are

doing well. Are there any other sort of particular native tree

species that you're worried about for the future in

particular?

ZOE HILL: When you look at trees now in the environment, it's

very obvious which ones are doing well, which ones aren't.

I'd be concerned for things like hornbeams, things like beeches.

You know, we're seeing increasingly these drier

conditions. They're just not thriving.

In our new woodland plantings they're the first things we're

seeing struggling and and I think you know I think they'll

be in our what in our kind of environment for a long time to

come but I do worry about the success we're going to have with

them in the future.

AJAY TEGALA: Because beech trees in particular they do a thing is

if I got this right called Marcescence is it well they're

supposed to hold on to those dead leaves until later on and

obviously that's not happening and So that's having an impact

on their life cycle?

ZOE HILL: Absolutely yeah and you know we're seeing in their

seed often as well like a lot of times now when I'm collecting

beach seed every year there's kind of been a reduction in

viable seed and obviously that'll then affect the onward

production of beach if we're not able to get viable seed the tree

also isn't self-seeding and so out in the wild we're probably

going to end up seeing less and less kind of natural

regeneration of things like beech and hornbeam.

AJAY TEGALA: They're two of my favourites actually. I remember

learning the Latin for beech is Fagus Sylvatica isn't it? Yeah.

I guess you're a bit of a whiz on all the Latin names as well.

ZOE HILL: Yeah. And so it's my volunteers. It's a love-hate

thing. I only do Latin.

It's universal. The Latin name is the Latin name. Let's go to a

garden plant, something like a geranium. That is a common name.

It's very different to the plant. It's a botanical name.

And that's kind of the same sometimes go for trees. You

know, if I said a goat willow. Someone might think of that as a

slightly different tree.

And so I tend to always try and use the Latin name. It enables

that we're all talking about the same thing, but sometimes a

Latin name can give the kind of details about the tree and where

you might find it. Like Acer Campestre is field maple. And so

it's of the woods, kind of that kind of thing. So you know

you're going to find it in a field.

AJAY TEGALA: I'm putting you on the spot a bit, but one of my

favourites is, I love to say, Fraxinus excelsior, which is

ash. Yes, yes. Do you know what that means? I've often wondered.

ZOE HILL: Do you know what? I don't.

AJAY TEGALA: No worries.

ZOE HILL: Because I just don't have much dealings with ash. And

so it's never been one that I've spent lots of time learning

about. But as a name, it just rolls off the tongue very well,

doesn't it?

AJAY TEGALA: Yeah. And it's interesting that you don't have

much that you're dealing with with ash. Because I was going to

ask about that, because obviously...

They've suffered a lot with the ash dieback disease and I've

heard that there might be some resilient strains coming through

but is that anything you're aware of or work with in any

way?

ZOE HILL: So I believe there is you know Kew have been out to

Holnicote in the past and they've collected seed from

trees that they believe to have some level resistance and.

Kind of within the nursery setting now we are allowed to

produce ash but from a disease point of view it's a very hard

line to draw if we if we grew ash in the nursery and it did

develop ash dieback there's not only a big kind of biosecurity

point there but it's also kind of a financial point you know

those trees grow in the nursery for two years if at the end of

that two-year cycle they get ash dieback that whole kind of

selection of trees has to unfortunately be destroyed and

so at the moment there's not the the desire for a lot of other

nurseries to grow ash yet but i think in the next 20 years we're

going to start seeing nurseries to producing those certain

strains of ash that are resistant you know we're seeing

in elms there's now disease resistant strains of elms that a

lot of bigger commercial nurseries are starting to

produce and so i slowly think over time we're going to see

these start to work their way back into our environment that

would be lovely because i i couldn't really even tell you

what an elm looks like because i see them so infrequently yeah

it's it's one of those that like As a kid, I remember seeing them

in hedgerows and things, but you never really correlated them

with anything because you didn't see them often enough.

And now, in the environment, they're so few and far between.

The ones you do see, you really hold a liking towards because

you know they're surviving and they're trying their hardest to

stop the beetle getting to them.

AJAY TEGALA: I work on a peatland reserve and obviously I

know that you'll be using peat-free soils. But I'm

intrigued to know a little bit about the kind of the growing

material, the soils and the mulches that you use.

ZOE HILL: Yes. So we are fully peat free.

I'm of the generation that's never been able to touch peat.

And so I've always had to kind of work with our peat free

compost. And a lot of the time, you know, when they come in, I

try and buy a compost that's kind of based on bark.

That tends to give the best base for growing media. And what

we'll do in the nursery is we'll kind of we'll tailor that to our

stock. A lot of the times now we're adding kind of moisture

retention media into those in order to them to essentially

stay moist the whole summer.

You know we're seeing a lot with our peat free media they will

dry out, they'll desiccate and almost become hydrophobic and so

those moisture retention medias allow this kind of compost to

stay. Moist for longer. You know, we'll add drainage to it,

we'll add some horticultural grit, you know, perlite, those

kind of things to allow the free movement of water in the

compost.

It doesn't stay water logged in wet conditions. You know, we'll

use in our bare root beds, it's a bit more kind of slightly

different to our kind of compost mix. We'll work with the soil,

we'll often mix in things like leaf mold, composted bark, we'll

occasionally use a green manure.

And so that will kind of grow on the growing bed when it's not in

use, work in. And not only does that kind of enrich the soil, it

also acts as almost like a bio-fumigant.

And so that's not a phrase a lot of people might have come

across. But it's essentially the green manure will kind of almost

suck out some of the nasties in the soil. It kind of allows the

soil to rest well and kind of over a couple of years.

The soil then becomes back to almost like a stable state and

it's kind of in its optimum for tree planting and so we use

green manures for that and so when we plant in it then we're

getting the best trees and what we're doing now more and more is

we'll mulch our trees saying that 20 years ago a lot of

gardeners wouldn't have done as they wouldn't have mulched their

beds as there wasn't a need whereas a lot of the time now

we'll mulch our beds because the moisture retention underneath

that mulch is 20 times what it would be without it.

AJAY TEGALA: And when you say mulching the beds, is that kind

of like leaf litter?

ZOE HILL: Yeah, so that can be leaf litter. It can be kind of

our garden compost. Sometimes we use small aggregate.

And that's for kind of some of the more kind of not delicate

seedlings, but some of the ones that kind of if there was a

living media, so things like your leaf mould or compost, if

they're on it, sometimes that can have a negative effect on

the soil.

And so we'll sometimes use like a small aggregate as a mulch

instead of those.

AJAY TEGALA: Gosh, there's so much to think about. Such a

complex, so many, so many factors. So is there one species

that grows particularly well, that you're particularly fond

of, perhaps a favourite, that is just a dream to work with?

ZOE HILL: Oh, see, I...

AJAY TEGALA: Or are they all hard?

ZOE HILL: I love...

As a gardener, I think a lot of people relate to this, is that

our favourite thing changes every time we see something

different. At the moment in the nursery, I'm loving Rowans.

They're...

Our bare root rows are growing so well in a season we're seeing

a metre and a half of growth you know they're still luscious

they're green. In one year I can get them from seed to plant was

ready to be planted out and in an earthly setting that's just

that's amazing that we're able to kind of captivate that much

growth in a tree to then plant out essentially.

AJAY TEGALA: We've talked about the process we've talked about

climate change I want to sort of look to the future because

obviously there's there's a lot of challenges, a lot of changes.

And I wondered what your thoughts are on what the UK

landscape from a tree perspective might look like in

50 years time.

ZOE HILL: Do you know what? I think we're going to see some

big changes in our landscape. You know, something I'd like to

see more of is kind of that kind of softer woodland edges. You

know, I want a bit more of that mosaic of habitats. I want our

kind of our woodlands and our heathlands to mix up a bit more.

You know, that's how we're going to develop a more resilient

woodland. It would be amazing if. We stopped having a bit more

of that kind of monoculture. Often in plantings, we used to

see people like, we want an oak woodland, we want a beech

woodland.

It'd be great to see those being mixed with kind of those native

broadleaf shrubs as well. You know, the underlay of food for

dormice, the birds, kind of a bit more maybe restored

temperate rainforest around here. You know, there's a lot of

those in the south end of the country. And we're very lucky

that we're able to have that habitat.

I'd love to see some more of that.

AJAY TEGALA: And for your role specifically, I mean, the

practical realities of growing tens of thousands of trees into

the future. How do you see that changing?

ZOE HILL: I think it's a hard one. I think nurseries always

over time have been very dynamic. We're very kind of we

become very aware of the changes because in that space every year

things change. And I think what we're going to see is we'll

grow.

I think it's how we're growing things. I think we're going to

revert back to growing things bare root.

40 years ago, bare root was the way we grew trees. That was the

best way. And then over time, we started growing sail-grown trees

just because they're more efficient. Whereas I think for a

quality of tree, we're going to go back towards bare root. And I

see that in the nursery as well.

We'll start growing back more towards bare root. I think how

we kind of manage water in the nursery will change. I think

there's going to be a lot more mulching, a lot more wider plant

spacings to allow that water to be absorbed by the tree better.

AJAY TEGALA: And just to pick up on bare root, I mean, I'm

visualising kind of like no soil and just roots. Is that what it

is?

ZOE HILL: That's pretty much it. Yeah. You know, we'll plant our

tree in the ground. It'll grow on for a season. We'll then lift

it. And it might have some soil attached to the roots, but

typically it'll be kind of.

A non-root bound structure essentially so we'll lift it and

it'll be they're typically larger which is why we kind of

went away from them you know the smaller cell growing trees were

just a lot easier for rangers and people to plant so yeah.

AJAY TEGALA: And in terms of water and water availability one

thing I'd really like to see is more use of the kind of the the

bath water and the dish water and this summer I was spreading

that in the garden and there's so much water that's wasted that

could be used to help things grow.

ZOE HILL: Absolutely. At home, every time I do the washing up,

I'll save that grey water to then use in the garden. You

know, personally, I'll use kind of natural soaps, whether it's

in kind of my bath showers, whether it's in my washing up.

And so I'm sure the water I'm putting out isn't full of

chemicals. I'm also thinking like the things that I'm washing

up in, we don't want to be putting oils and things really

into our gardens.

And so I think it is also just knowing what your what you're

putting out into your garden and there's a lot more so just

rainwater conservation a lot of people now just at home they're

going to start putting water butts on their sheds. You know

I'm in Somerset and for the first time in 50 years we've got

a hose pipe ban that's something we've never dealt with here and

so I think even just locally people are going to start

thinking more about water conservation whether that's

rainwater grey water and I think we will start seeing that in the

nursery sector but We're talking commercial quantities and so

it's going to be how we're managing our water I think.

AJAY TEGALA: And so for ordinary gardeners obviously they can use

grey water that's one tip for them but do you have any other

tips for people at home and how they can help their trees have

the best chance for the future?

ZOE HILL: I'm going to say mulching is really important. I

think regular little and often waters are better than once a

week going out and giving a large water. There's quite

interesting things now. They're like water bags that go around a

tree or near a tree, and you can fill those up.

And instead of kind of you water the ground, and in the state

that it's in, it runs off, those little water bags will allow the

water to slowly trickle into the soil. And so I'd recommend

those. And I think just those few little things will help

trees establish better.

AJAY TEGALA: And once they've established, they can go on to

live for so many years. And do you ever think...

ZOE HILL: They can outlive us.

AJAY TEGALA: Yeah, I was going to say, yeah. Do you ever think

about some of your trees and the legacy they're going to have

beyond your lifetime?

ZOE HILL: Absolutely.

Some of the rangers here took me to a planting that was done the

year I was born. And when you look at it, you can't even

fathom that it's only that old when you look at it. The trees

that we've already grown in the nursery that have been planted

out, I think of those in 20 years time.

I think that's going to be an established woodland just in 20

years. I can't imagine to even think of it in 100, 200, 300

years. We're talking future generations down the line. And

so it's almost unfathomable to think about.

AJAY TEGALA: And to conclude, do you think you'd have a message

for those future generations in years to come in relation to

your experience and to trees?

ZOE HILL: I think it's all just about appreciating what we've

got. I think it's just appreciate what's around you,

you know, look after the small bits we have, as well as

nurturing those we're going to create and just kind of adapt.

The world we have is changing. We're going to have to change

what we're doing. And so just be welcoming of kind of change.

AJAY TEGALA: I think that's a really great message. And I've

thoroughly enjoyed listening to sort of a taste of your life and

the amazing things you're doing. So many things to think about.

And yeah, I'm kind of envious, really. I'd love to come and see

you and join you one day.

ZOE HILL: Oh, that'd be fabulous.

AJAY TEGALA: Thanks so much, Zoe. And thanks to everybody for

listening to this episode of Wild Voices from Wild Tales. You

can follow us on Instagram At NT Wild Tales, and you can listen

to more episodes of Wild Tales on your podcast app of choice.