Why I believe you should plant a tree in your lifetime

I think you should plant a tree in your lifetime. I started Cotswold Trees to make that as simple as possible, without cutting a single corner on how the tree is grown or how it gets to you.

That belief came first. The business came second. If you’re new here, I want you to understand the person behind the nursery before you buy anything, so here’s the honest version.

A slow conviction, held for thirty years

This didn’t happen overnight. It started around thirty years ago, mountain biking in Wales, spending long days outdoors and realising that working in service of the environment was always going to be part of my career in some form.

I took a few detours along the way, but the direction always felt the same.

I adapted gradually, year by year, until I found myself standing in an empty field in Oxfordshire with a plan to grow native British trees properly. Owning and stewarding a woodland changed how I think about time and care. When you manage land for decades rather than seasons, you make different decisions about everything downstream, including how you sell.

The problem I kept running into

If you’ve ever tried to buy a good tree, you already know it’s a faff.

Garden centres hold limited stock, often whatever arrived on the last lorry, with little advice on whether a tree suits your soil or space. Commercial growers sit at the other end: minimum orders, trade accounts, pallets, and no personal service for someone who just wants a tree or three for a back garden.

Ordinary people who wanted to plant something meaningful kept hitting blockers. You want a tree for a new home, a memorial, some screening, or a bit of shade but the supply chain was built for someone else.

Cotswold Trees is my answer to that. The right tree, grown well, delivered to your garden, with a person you can actually talk to.

The decisions that define us

Values are easy to print on a website. I’d rather show them through the choices we’ve made, because each one costs something and proves something.

• Peat-free compost. Every tree, from day one. Peat extraction damages the habitats we’re trying to restore, so using it would undermine the whole point.
• Rainwater harvesting. We collect and store rainwater to irrigate most of the nursery, reducing mains water for growing.
• Off-grid power. The nursery runs on its own generated power, which keeps our footprint honest and our costs lean.
• Electric delivery for larger trees. When a bigger tree needs delivering personally, it goes in the electric van. It’d be a bit daft to grow a tree sustainably and then burn diesel getting it to you. For larger trees, we’ll give you a two-hour slot the day before and live tracking on the day, so there’s no hanging around waiting all morning.
• Carefully packaged smaller trees. Smaller trees are boxed up properly for transit, so they arrive in the same condition they left the nursery, roots intact and ready to go in the ground. No nasty surprises when you open the box. In the last year, 99.8% deliveries were made with no issues reported by customers.
• Potted stock, available year-round. Bare-root seasons restrict planting to winter. Container-grown trees mean you can plant in the month that suits you, with a healthy root system already established.

The thinking behind all of it is pretty simple: understand the logistics first, then grow to suit. We worked out how a tree travels safely, how it arrives in good condition, and how someone actually receives it at home. Then we shaped the growing around those answers.

What we choose not to do

Focus is a feature of this nursery, and it shapes what you’ll find here.

We turn away high-volume hedging contracts. Thousands of whips on a pallet is honest work, and other growers do it well. It just pulls attention away from the individual trees and individual gardens we’re here for.

We also don’t compete on sheer size. A huge specimen looks impressive on delivery day. A well-grown younger tree, planted properly, often establishes faster and thrives longer. We’d rather sell you the tree that’s doing well in year five than the one that photographs well in week one.

And we hold our pricing. Heavily discounted prices usually means a corner got cut somewhere, in the compost, the care, or the delivery. Our prices reflect what it genuinely costs to grow a tree the right way, and I’m always happy to talk through where that money goes.

How this ends: with your tree, thriving

I measure every order against three things. You should be happy with the tree, happy with the service, and happy with the price. When all three land right, you’ll probably tell a friend or a neighbour. That’s how this nursery grows, through planted trees rather than advertising budgets.

So the invitation stands. Plant a tree in your lifetime. Pick one that suits your garden, your soil, and your reasons, and we’ll take care of the rest, direct from our field in Oxfordshire to the hole you dig.

Years from now, the business matters far less than what’s standing in your garden: a tree you planted, settled in and growing, likely to outlive us both.