20 January 2024 , 15:50
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For the working members of the Royal Family, chances are they have attended more tree-planting ceremonies in a year than most people will in a lifetime, and for King Charles - a keen gardener and environmentalist - this is probably truer than most.
Even before he became monarch, Charles maintained a long-time ritual that he goes through whenever a tree-planting ceremony is completed and the new sapling is safely secured in the ground. The ritual was revealed in a list of fun facts released by the palace to mark his 70th birthday, and frankly may be a little bit baffling, especially to any onlookers who are not particularly green-fingered themselves.
"After planting each tree," Clarence House explained in 2018, Charles "gives a branch a friendly shake to wish them well." This seems pretty much like the tree version of shaking someone's hand, and given how many saplings Charles has planted over the years - both as the longest-serving Prince of Wales and King - it's safe to assume he is well acquainted with many different trees up and down the country.
Charles is well known for his environmental activism and is now often regarded as having been ahead of the curve when it came to things like plastic waste and living more sustainably, as the international community struggles to tackle the climate crisis. He is also a keen horticulturalist, and he first admitted in 1986 that he also enjoys indulging a good chinwag with the plants he is growing - something he was initially mocked for confessing.
"I just come and talk to the plants, really - very important to talk to them, they respond," he said back in the eighties, and in 2010, Charles doubled down on his plant chats, saying: "I happily talk to plants and trees and listen to them. I think it's absolutely crucial."
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However, the now-king has been vindicated in recent years, with scientific research showing that talking to plants, does in fact help them to grow. More recently, a BBC documentary explored the ways in which plants and trees are able to think and communicate and an executive producer of the documentary said Charles is "going to feel pretty vindicated because he was ahead of the game."
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