Sometimes, the simplest acts leave the deepest roots.
Yesterday, on National Tree Day, Surrey’s Mayor Brenda Locke joined volunteers and staff at Bolivar Park to do something beautifully ordinary yet powerfully symbolic — planting trees. More than 500 trees and shrubs now stand as a promise: cleaner air, more vibrant wildlife, and greener neighbourhoods for years to come.
What strikes me about events like these isn’t just the number — though 500 trees is no small feat — but the thought behind it. In a city that’s constantly growing and changing, these green spaces become our quiet anchors. A park is never just a park. It’s where children run without fences, where neighbours cross paths, where seasons leave their mark. Planting here isn’t just about carbon and climate — it’s about memory, belonging, and continuity.
Tree planting days also remind us of something humbling: you rarely plant a tree for yourself. You plant it for someone who will come long after you — maybe a child yet to be born, maybe a stranger who finds shade on a summer afternoon. That patience, that long view, feels rare in a world addicted to quick results.
So yes, it was one morning at Bolivar Park. Yes, it was shovels and soil, a bit of mud on your shoes. But stitched into that ordinary morning is something larger — a collective decision to care for a city not just as it is, but as it will be.
And maybe that’s the quiet beauty of National Tree Day: the reminder that sometimes the future can start with a single sapling.
