The contest The tree of the year will celebrate its 18th birthday by planting out an alley of generic trees

The Slovak competiton celebrates jubilee this year. The organisers of the contest, on the occasion of its birthday, have decided to celebrate it by planting out new trees which will be the legacy for the future generations. The planting of the alley of generic trees will be carried out alongside of the cycle route next to river Morava and in the proximity of a significant archaeological place and one of the oldest sacral construction in Slovakia – the  church of Saint Margaret of Antioch. Also a well-know large leaves Lime stands by the church – exactly this Lime which was the winner of the constest of the year 2018.

„Our contest has reached its notional adulthood and we could not have found a more suitable manner to celebrate it. We have decided to bequeath a living memory in the form of alley of generic trees for the  future generations. Perhaps it will remind people in another18 years´time  that it is exactly the nature which have to be protected“, says Peter Medveď, the director of the Ekopolis Foundation.

“We have managed to carry out the plantation of the alley of generic trees thanks to our main partner of the contest Slovenská Sporiteľňa Foundation and other partners a civic organization Kopčianska lipka and the municipal council in Kopčany. We plan to plant out 34 trees in the project. One particular family from the village Kopčany will plant one tree; they will adopt it and will take care of it in the future“, says Martina Ragalová from the Ekopolis Foundation. The professionals from the Ekopolis Foundation mainly considered the suitable selection of woody plants when plating the alley. They have taken into consideration which woody plants are typical for the place and at the same time are suitable for the alley plantation. “We put great emphasis on aspect landscape when designing the alley of trees. We will fundamentally plant out lime trees, oak trees, Rowan trees, cherry trees, hornbeam trees, American Mulberry trees and sorb trees,” Ragalová adds.

The beginning of the plantation is scheduled for the end of the October. It is important to prepare the holes into which we will plant out the trees until then. „We originally planned to carry out the plantation of the generic alley trees as a big public event. However the plantation of the generic alley trees will be carried out gradually due to COVID 19 measures at end of October and at the beginning of November in order to comply with all the safety measures. We will announce the winners of the current year´s contest at the end of the plantation“, says Ragalová.