What a First-Time Volunteer Can Expect at a Pro-Green Shapers Planting Day

We get a version of the same question often: what does a planting day actually involve, and do I need any experience? The short answer is no experience is required, and most of what you need we already have on site.

A typical planting day starts early, usually by 8am, at whichever street or green corridor is scheduled that week. Our Organizing Secretary briefs volunteers on the site, the number of holes already dug by the nursery team, and the mix of species being planted that day.

Volunteers are grouped into small teams of three to four, each responsible for a stretch of planting: positioning the seedling, backfilling soil, firming it down, watering it in, and adding a layer of mulch. It is physical but not technical work, and someone experienced is always nearby to check the first few trees each new volunteer plants.

Bring closed shoes, clothes you do not mind getting soil on, and a water bottle. We provide seedlings, tools, gloves for those who want them, and usually some tea and a snack partway through. Sessions typically wrap up by midday, before the sun gets too intense.

What surprises most first-timers is how quickly the morning goes, and how satisfying it is to walk past a street a few months later and recognise a tree you personally put in the ground. If that sounds like something you would like to do, our upcoming planting days are announced through the Get Involved page and shared with residents' associations across Donholm.