Leicester has welcomed National Tree Week with the introduction of two brand new tree trails, inviting residents and visitors to explore the city's diverse arboreal heritage through guided digital tours.
New Digital Guides Enhance Park Experience
The city council has launched comprehensive online tree trails for Aylestone Hall Gardens and Knighton Park, featuring both native British species and exotic imports from around the world. Visitors can now download these free guides to transform their park visits into educational expeditions.
Among the notable specimens highlighted in the trails are native trees like the wild cherry (prunus avium), common beech (fagus sylvatica), and common yew (taxus baccata). The guides also showcase exotic varieties including the Persian ironwood (parrotia persica), the distinctive handkerchief tree (davidia involucrata), and the ancient dawn redwood (metasequoia glyptostroboides).
Remarkable Trees and Volunteer Efforts
Tree enthusiasts will discover some extraordinary specimens along the trails. At Aylestone Hall Gardens, visitors can find the common prickly ash (zanthoxylum americanum), a small tree whose aromatic leaves and berries were historically used by Native Americans to relieve toothache.
Knighton Park boasts the maidenhair tree (ginkgo biloba), an ancient species that has survived for over 250 million years. These new trails represent the latest additions to a growing series of tree guides that have been redesigned by Leicester's dedicated volunteer tree wardens in partnership with the city council's trees and woodlands team.
Assistant City Mayor Councillor Vi Dempster celebrated the launch, stating: "National Tree Week is the perfect opportunity for us to celebrate the trees in our city and to thank our volunteers and tree wardens who do so much to help us maintain and improve Leicester's tree stock."
Expanding Leicester's Urban Forest
The two new trails bring the total number in the series to ten, with more expected to follow in the new year. This initiative coincides with National Tree Week, which runs from November 22-30 and marks the beginning of the winter planting season.
Leicester's commitment to urban forestry extends beyond the trails. On Wednesday, November 26, volunteer tree wardens and members of the Friends of Castle Hill Country Park collaborated with council staff to plant a new community orchard featuring forty fruit trees including apples, pears, plums and damsons.
The city has ambitious plans for continued tree planting, with more than 2,300 trees scheduled for planting at various locations around Leicester between now and the end of March 2026. The planting strategy focuses predominantly on British native species, though more exotic varieties will be introduced in suitable locations to enhance local biodiversity.
Major planting projects include a new woodland at Aylestone Playing Fields, where 1,600 small trees will be planted through the Woodland Trust's MOREwoods scheme, and 180 replacement trees at Keepers Lodge Park in Beaumont Leys to compensate for ash trees lost to ash dieback disease.
Additional planting initiatives include 58 new highway trees funded by Local Transport Grants and 30 replacement trees on Victoria Park following losses to sooty bark disease.
Currently, tree canopy covers approximately 16 percent of Leicester, with the city council managing an impressive inventory of over 189,000 individual trees and 113 hectares of woodland across parks, open spaces, highway verges, housing estates, school grounds, and community facilities.
The new tree trails for Aylestone Hall Gardens and Knighton Park can be downloaded from the Leicester City Council website, joining existing trails for Abbey Park, Castle Gardens, Castle Hill Country Park, Evington Park, Humberstone Park, Spinney Hill Park, Victoria Park and Western Park.
