Garden plot in bloom in sky garden on viaduct in Manchester

We promote a culture of trees

Engaging communities

We’re a community forest charity and engaging people in planting trees, looking after trees and nurturing a culture of trees is at the heart of what we do. We look to create meaningful opportunities for people to enjoy, learn about and celebrate our urban forest, while contributing to improved health and wellbeing.

We have a variety of ways to stimulate and inspire people to get involved in our work, this includes everything from our Citizen Forester volunteer programme to campaigns and year-round events.

Explore our events

Become a Citizen Forester

Are you interested in helping make Greater Manchester greener?

Find out how you can get involved with our work

Find out more

Trees for everyone, trees everywhere!

We’re passionate about embedding the importance of trees throughout the fabric of life in Greater Manchester – from arts and heritage, to health and wellbeing. Trees provide us with life and we believe for their importance to be realised they shouldn’t just be confined to the typical environment and forestry sectors!

The core of our engagement approach is to provide an opportunity for people to make a difference. This might be physical improvements to their neighbourhood, or to undertake activities or actions that makes a difference to their livelihoods or the planet.

Our partnerships

We can only broaden our reach and impact with successful partnership work and at City of Trees, we are proud of our track record. By working with partner organisations we can effectively share resources, collaborate on funding efforts and reach more people in a wider audience.

From groups that support those facing inequalities through to ‘Friends of’ and faith groups, we believe in the collective strength of community as City of Trees is here for every person in Greater Manchester.

Six yellow buckets with whips ready to be planted

Spotlight on…

Treescapes: Voices for the Future

City of Trees has been part of the Treescapes: Voices for the Future project, working with children and young people to develop equitable, resilient treescapes for future generations. Voices for Future is a long-running research project led by academics at Manchester Metropolitan University and co-produced by tree-planting partners like us and the Mersey Forest.

City of Trees has worked closely with the children of Seymour Primary School in Old Trafford as part of the project to help create their own tree manifesto.

Example of childrens manifesto for our tree engagement project

Current projects

Gazebo with bunting sheltering people at community event

Nature for Health

The Nature for Health Network is a collective of individuals and organisations across the Greater Manchester region who are actively engaged with, or interested in, the social and health benefits of connecting with nature.

Castlefield Viaduct

In 2022, City of Trees joined partners, the National Trust, to bring the Castlefield Viaduct, an iconic Mancunian landmark, back to life. We played a key role in the creation of the community sky garden which opened to the public in July 2022 with the opening of our partner plot.

three older people enjoying view of a woodland from a bench in Sale

Dementia Friendly Walks

We're committed to supporting those living with dementia, hosting our Dementia Naturally Active walks twice a month in the city centre and Bolton. Our walks are designed for anyone living with a diagnosis of dementia, their friends, family and carers.

Spotlight on…

Heritage Trees

Heritage Trees ran from January 2015 to December 2018 and aimed to celebrate, record and protect our local tree heritage – the trees, woodlands, hedgerows and orchards which are part of the fabric of Greater Manchester’s towns and cities.

Our project collected hundreds of stories and memories about people’s most loved trees, which have been kindly shared here. City of Trees engaged 20,000 people at events, safeguarded 20 heritage trees, revitalised 10 orchards, and restored 2km of hedgerow. Working with over 50 partners, we planted thousands of trees across Greater Manchester to celebrate the region’s love of trees.

Visit the Heritage Trees website

Wildflowers on table with gloves and instructions for planting