Healthcare Orchards Scheme

NHS Forest is pleased to officially launch our Healthcare Orchards scheme in time for the 2024-25 planting season. We have up to 2,000 fully funded fruit trees available for NHS sites in England. We anticipate high demand for these productive trees, so please do submit your expression of interest as soon as possible to make sure you don’t miss out!

Trees will be supplied as bare-rooted maidens (1 – 1.5 metres tall) in multiples of 10 from a choice of apple, pear, cherry, plum, damson, medlar and quince varieties. We’ll include all necessary planting sundries too (specifically one bio tree shelter, stake, rubber tie and mulch mat per tree).

There is a minimum order of 10 trees. These can be divided across multiple sites but must be planted in groups of 5 or more. Tree spacings will depend on the vigour of the rootstocks. We recommend 200 m² (2,150 square feet, 0.05 acres) per 10 trees in order to create a more traditional community orchard with semi-vigorous rootstock.

To aid sites in selecting the most appropriate trees, we have run some online webinars in partnership with The Orchard Project . The recorded presentations can be found here: Planning and Maintaining Orchards on Healthcare sites: Video Resources and we strongly advise watching these and downloading the handouts at the bottom of the page before applying for fruit trees.

Want some ideas about how you can engage patients and staff with an orchard? See our blog and downloadable seasonal calendar for orchards.

Looking to plant more than just fruit trees? You could consider incorporating our Wild Food bundles that are perfect for foraging; or why not plant Shelterbelt bundles adjacent to your new orchard to help attract pollinating insects? For more information about our native tree bundles and to submit an expression of interest, visit our tree bundle page.