Spades, tea and a lot of mulch.

Most of Streetwood happens one bucket at a time. A few Saturdays a year we close a pavement politely, put the kettle on and plant a whole street in a morning. School classes plant on weekdays, and in late winter there are mulching mornings and gentle tidying days with the council’s tree officer.

Two people in pink and yellow raincoats planting and watering young trees in an open fieldA young volunteer in a blue T-shirt and work gloves crouching to plant a sapling among young treesA man in a white sun hat and gloves kneeling on a lawn to spread dark mulch around a newly planted young tree

A planting morning, hour by hour.

9.00am

Meet at the first tree pit

Coffee, gloves and a short safety talk. Everyone gets a job, a tree and a partner, and under-16s stay with their grown-up all morning.

9.30am

Into the ground

The council’s contractor has already opened the pits. We loosen the soil, check the depth and set each tree at the height it grew in the nursery.

10.30am

Stake, tie and water

Backfill, firm it gently with a boot, fit the stake and the tie, then give a long, slow first watering.

11.30am

Names and mulch

Rings of mulch, name labels and the first entry in the register, usually agreed by a show of hands and some light lobbying.

12.30pm

Sweep up and sign up

Tools washed, pavements swept, cake eaten. New carers sign up for their first week on the watering rota.

Muddy boots, good mornings.

Imagined volunteers and teachers on their planting days. Names are fictional and photographs are illustrative.

Ms Adebayo

Class teacher, school planting day

“Thirty Year 2s, ten trees and one very patient tree officer. They still check on theirs every morning on the way into school.”

Three young children in school uniforms watering a flower bed with bright green watering cans

Frank

Mulching morning regular

“My grandchildren are better at this than I am. I am better at the tea, which is the important part.”

An older man in a pink shirt showing a girl how to trim a shrub with secateurs while a boy watches

Kit

First planting day

“I had never held a spade. By lunchtime I had tied in a tree with my initials on the label.”

A person in a pink rain jacket kneeling to tie a newly planted sapling between two wooden stakes

Rosa & friends

Carers of No. 0090

“We came for one Saturday. We have now been on the rota for three summers and have opinions about mulch.”

Five people of different ages crouching and standing around a young tree as they plant it in dark soil

The people with the spades.

Streetwood is imagined as a tiny paid team and a large crowd of volunteers. Names and roles are fictional; photographs are illustrative.

Priya Nair

Tree warden in training

Plans each planting morning with the council, from the list of pits to the order of the cake.

A young woman in green overalls, secateurs in her pocket, standing among blossoming branches

Joan Whitlock

Mulching mornings

Seventy-nine, unstoppable with a rake and in charge of every winter mulching morning since the first one.

A smiling woman with short grey hair, in a rust cardigan, standing among garden plants

Arthur Bell

Tools and tea

Counts the spades out and counts them back in. Also the kettle, which travels in a wheelbarrow.

A smiling older man in a flat cap and navy fleece standing in a garden

Dev Mensah

Schools and young volunteers

Runs the school planting days and the Saturday crew for anyone aged sixteen to twenty-five.

A smiling young volunteer in a blue T-shirt and red gloves holding a seedling in cupped hands

Safe, kind and muddy.

The house rules for every Streetwood day, and the kind of rules any real volunteer group should have before it picks up a spade.

Planning a day of your own?

A real group would publish its risk assessment, insurance and first-aid arrangements here. Streetwood is fictional, so this section shows the shape of them.

Anyone working near the kerb wears a high-visibility vest, and a steward keeps watch on the traffic side.

High-vis by the road

Under-16s are very welcome with a parent or carer, who stays beside them all morning.

Children with a grown-up

We lend gloves in every size. Tools are handed out, counted and handed back.

Gloves for everyone

We only dig where the council has marked and checked a pit for pipes and cables, never a hole of our own.

Only marked pits

Pruning is for the council or a qualified arborist. Volunteers clear litter and weeds, nothing more.

No pruning on the day

High winds, ice or frozen ground cancel a day. We would much rather plant next week.

The weather decides

One street, three springs.

An imagined street told in three pictures: bare, newly planted, then green from end to end. The photographs show different places, chosen to illustrate the idea rather than a real project.

An empty street between long pale buildings, with not a single tree, under a grey skyA newly planted young tree coming into leaf, tied to a wooden stake on a grass vergeA narrow herringbone brick lane between houses, lined with young trees and potted shrubs