Customers at Buckingham Garden Centre who purchase a cut Christmas tree will be helping to plant trees in Africa in 2022.

Despite the continuing issues with the pandemic, customers visiting Buckingham Garden Centre have proved there’s plenty of Christmas cheer when it comes to lifting festive spirits. 

The Garden Centre’s publicity manager, Chris Day said: “There’s a much more orderly approach to Christmas this year and our customers are planning accordingly. We know anecdotally that many of our customers have been buying a real tree for the very first time or purchasing a second tree for decorating outside to help bring some much welcome Christmas cheer to the neighbourhood.”

For the second year running the Garden Centre has been working with a local UK charity, Ripple Africa, to help raise money and awareness of tree planting in Malawi. The Garden Centre pledged 50p to the charity for every Christmas tree sold, so they are delighted to be donating funds for the ongoing projects of the Ripple Africa charity. For every 50p donated this way, two trees will be planted in Malawi.

Geoffrey Furber, the Founder of Ripple Africa, said: “A huge thank you to Buckingham Garden Centre and their customers for supporting our tree planting project in Malawi. Not only does each 50p enable people to plant two trees, it also contributes to our community forest conservation work both of which help the local communities and their environment.” 

To donate to Ripple Africa’s plant a tree campaign, you can visit the Ripple Africa website www.rippleafrica.org/xmastree or text one of the following numbers: 

• To Donate £3 to plant 12 trees text: XMASTREE to 70331
• To Donate £5 to plant 20 trees text: XMASTREE to 70970
• To Donate £10 to plant 40 trees text: XMASTREE to 70191

Over the years Ripple Africa has developed its environmental projects as a result of deforestation in Malawi. Their first environmental project was community tree planting. This continues to be a very successful project with about two million trees planted each year. To date Ripple Africa have planted over 17 million trees with tree planting farmers and their families in Malawi. 

To find out more about Ripple Africa visit their website www.rippleafrica.org or contact Chris Day, Plant Publicity Manager on 01280 827910 or 07941009492, e-mail chris@hedging.co.uk