Uist Community Tree Nursery plans for home grown saplings

Stòras Uibhist, Tagsa Uibhist and the Woodland Trust are working together to create the Uist Community Tree Nursery. A trial project to grow 1,000 native trees is now underway with the expectation that the young trees will be planted out next Spring.
The ‘mini-plug’ trees were hand delivered by tree guru, Craig Shearer, whose work for the Woodland Trust supports smaller nurseries and seed-collection ‘hubs’ throughout Scotland. Craig spent a July afternoon at Tagsa Uibhist, imparting his expert knowledge and devising a care plan to nurture the plants. The young trees will be looked after and closely monitored by Tagsa Uibhist staff and volunteers, with the main concern being keeping them safe from the hungry East Camp rabbits.
Viv Halcrow, Croft Woodlands Adviser for Uist and Barra said: “It is inspiring to see such high interest in establishing small areas of native trees on crofts and in the community. These will fit in with other crofting activity, benefit wildlife, add a missing dimension to the landscape, and maybe most importantly, provide shelter for stock, housing, and people!”
The opportunity for the new nursery project came about through Viv’s project work, which highlighted that the considerable demand for trees in Uist was being hampered by significant challenges with the supply chain: “Through the six years of the Croft Woodland Project, we have had to bring practically all the planting stock from the mainland. I’ve always felt that an island nursery would make a lot of sense, as we can use seed from local trees, reduce transport costs and delays, and ultimately, hopefully, the nursery could become a small business opportunity”.
Once the trial has completed, the hope is to scale up to producing 10,000 trees per year with the majority being supplied to the Woodland Trust for local projects and the remainder being made available for people to purchase directly from Tagsa Uibhist.
Olli MacLennan, Community Gardens Manager at Tagsa Uibhist said: “Trialling a Uist Tree Nursery within Tagsa Community Gardens’ existing infrastructure and utilising the current skeleton staff and site grounds is a logical approach to setup for us, allowing us to monitor and record required maintenance needs, time, and resources to estimate future commitments for scaling up to 10,000 seedlings/saplings. It’s an exciting step for us in Community Gardens, with a team made up of dedicated growers, and a real privilege to work in collaboration with Stòras Uibhist and the Woodland Trust.”
Tagsa Uibhist Chief Executive Chris MacLullich said: “In Tagsa we see this as a fantastic opportunity for our volunteers and Community Gardens team to work together on a meaningful project that will improve the environment in which we live in Uist. It’s a great collaboration and will be part of the Uist response to the climate emergency. These trees will sequester carbon over their lifetime and contribute to mitigating global heating. We hope to scale up after a successful first year”.
Stòras Uibhist has been closely involved with setting up the trial and will be planting the 1,000 trees out across the estate in Spring 2023. Darren Taylor, Chief Executive: “We are delighted to be collaborating with Tagsa Uibhist and the Woodland Trust on this brilliant project that will bring so much community benefit.”