{"id":611954426182,"date":"2025-11-13T08:51:54","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T08:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ashridgetrees.co.uk\/blogs\/uncategorized\/native-british-trees-climate-change-warming\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T08:42:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T08:42:28","slug":"native-british-trees-climate-change-warming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ashridgetrees.co.uk\/blogs\/trees\/native-british-trees-climate-change-warming\/","title":{"rendered":"British native tree controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

How much do you love the native woodlands of Britain? Nurseries like ours sell more native trees than anything else tree-shaped, so you’d probably think that I’d be one of their biggest fans. And I am. For now. We get asked about native plants for woodland & gardens a lot. I’m impressed by many people with the desire to use native trees. Some of the conservation projects that we work for will only accept trees that were grown here in the UK, from UK seeds, ideally from the same region as their project. Why would I have foreboding about conserving our trees? I’m no climate change expert and I don’t know what will happen to the British climate over the coming decades. One thing is certain, however: if <\/strong>the climate does indeed become significantly drier and warmer, with little to no frost in winter and more droughts in summer, several common native trees<\/a> will be unable to survive without human assistance & some would disappear altogether. What exactly is a native tree? Some countries & islands have had their trees more or less in place for millions of years, many of which are “endemic” – unique to that region. This is not the case in Britain. Britain only has one tree sub-group that is endemic: Types of Whitebeam called “apomictic”. Put simply, apomictic means that they gave up on sex and now make near clones of themselves (which I don’t think is very British, even for a tree).<\/p>\n