Short film celebrates tree lovers on mission to ‘green Hackney’
The group has been planting trees for 25 years. Photograph: Gabriel Stewart
A short film celebrates the Hackney locals who have planted hundreds of trees across the borough over the last 25 years.
Everyone’s Garden explores the work of the Tree Musketeers, a volunteer-run charity bringing together local communities to transform Hackney’s parks into diverse tree-filled spaces.
Hackney-born Marcelo was working as a bike mechanic and living in a basement, fed up with never seeing sunlight, before he found the group.
He told the Citizen: “I really value waking up, seeing the sunrise, seeing the sunset, being part of a circadian rhythm.
“It’s really hard being a young person growing up in the city to realise those things, access those things and appreciate them because life is so fast-paced.”
Once he found the Tree Musketeers’ nursery in Hackney Marshes, he soon became fascinated by nature.
Now, 10 years later, Marcelo gets up early every morning to plant trees and care for the natural world around him. He retrained as an arboriculturist, a tree care professional, and works as Islington Council’s Tree Planting and Engagement Officer.
He puts much of this development down to the community he found with the Tree Musketeers.
He said: “I had a space that was local to me that I could experiment and try different things that I enjoyed. I could make mistakes without it being a setting where you could get fired or you’ve lost someone money.”
The Tree Musketeers began as Hackney Tree Wardens, under the management of the council. However the group became an independent body and changed its name in 2002.
Hackney native Marcelo now guides the tree-planting sessions. Photograph: Gabriel Stewart
One of its first projects was in Stoke Newington Common, where the group planted more than 90 trees. Their work has since moved across the borough’s green spaces, maintaining community orchards in Spring Hill, Daubeney Fields and Millfields Park.
Community groups like Tree Musketeers are key to the capital’s thriving ecosystem. The London Urban Forest Resilience Project estimates they represent around 50% of the city’s current management work.
But to Marcelo, the group is about more than just maintaining and managing trees – the group’s work upskilling people in the community is just as valuable. He said: “Getting people who are really interested but don’t know how to access the knowledge of arboriculture.
“Being able to elevate the knowledge base of people in Hackney, I found this really inspiring. It’s not dependent on one expert or one person, everyone’s skilling up.”
Marcelo now leads the Tree Musketeers’ planting sessions in Hackney Downs every December alongside founding member Eugene. Over the past 20 years, they have planted between 200 and 300 trees in the park, including 14 more earlier this month.
The group has been celebrated in a new short film. Photograph: Gabriel Stewart
Peter Burke went along to his first session more than a decade ago. He was viewing a flat in the area when he saw a handwritten sign advertising the group, and planted his first tree within minutes of joining.
Burke moved into the flat and sees his tree every day, which is now ‘about 40ft high.’
“Funnily enough, you don’t really see it mature,” he said. “You kind of see it as it grows, you grow with it.”
Tree planters are now up against the ever-present threat of climate change, something they have to take into consideration when planning what to plant.
According to Forest Research, drought, flooding, pests, pathogens, wind and fire are increasing risks to British woodland as the planet warms.
“Nowadays we have to think about what kind of trees we need to be planting for, say 50, 200 years down the line, that are going to mitigate prolonged dry periods and really wet winters,” said Burke.
The oaks and birches the group have just planted in Hackney Downs were deliberately placed in between London planes – a deciduous tree found all over the capital – for this very reason.
In a warming environment, Marcelo said these trees which once thrived here may not fare so well. He added: “We have to consider one day all of these planes will go. That’s why we’re planting an avenue in between them now, so that in 30 years, we have canopy for the future.”
Canopy protection from trees is an effective way to mitigate the effects of climate change in big cities, providing cooling effects thanks to the shade from the leaves.
The changing London climate has allowed Marcelo to plant one of his favourite Mediterranean trees in the capital. In collaboration with Energy Garden, he is now raising a mastic tree – typically found on the Greek island of Chios, around the Turkish town of Çeşme and northern parts of Iraq – outside of Canonbury station after planting it last year.
He said: “It was an experiment to see, can it survive the climate? And I’m very pleased that it’s hanging in there.”
Marcelo is hoping the Chinese pistache plant he has growing in the group’s nursery will be out in the wild soon, too. He added: “I want to plant one and see it grow up while I have the time instead of waiting until I’m older.”
The brand new film Everyone’s Garden explores how Tree Musketeers’ humble volunteer-run nursery at Hackney Marshes has evolved. It was made on a pro-bono basis by The Good Side, a Hackney-based research and production agency.
The film is only minutes long, but tells Marcelo’s story and the tale of how a group of dedicated volunteers ‘greened’ Hackney, turning many of its parks from places you ‘walked through to get to the other side’ to beloved community spaces.
Co-founder and head of The Good Productions, James Lewis, said: “This project lets us support a brilliant local charity, upskill our team and create something honest and beautiful that reflects the power 0of urban green spaces.”
The Tree Musketeers regularly run tree-planting sessions for members of the public. Information about these can be found on Eventbrite.