As The Royal Parks charity’s first ever treescape curator, Greg Packman leads the development of thriving, biodiverse and aesthetic treescapes across London’s eight Royal Parks.

After working with the charity for eight years in total, Packman previously worked within the arboricultural and tree management team. Mainly based across Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, The Green Park and St James’s Park, he focused on the risk management due to the millions of visitors these areas host each year producing stress on the ground and in turn tree health.

“A lot of my previous role was focused on risk management,” he explains. “Rather than having zero risk, which is never possible – you can’t get the benefit of mature trees without an inherent level of risk. It was managing it to a reasonably practicable level, where you get maximum benefit with an acceptable level of risk.”

While consistently protecting the trees across the parks, Packman would work alongside the ecology team acting on various habitat projects as well.

However, as weather patterns are becoming increasingly unpredictable, Packman’s role has expanded to planning how to adapt the parks’ treescapes to cope with the impacts of climate change. “It’s about planting for future generations as well as conserving the beautiful treescapes enjoyed by visitors today,” he says.

He explains, “I am passionate about championing diversity in tree planting to strengthen resilience against the growing threat of pests and diseases – and importantly it’s about ensuring that the parks’ treescapes continue to provide habitat for wildlife.

“This means selecting and protecting the right trees so that the treescapes can adapt to hotter, drier summers and warmer, wetter winters.”

He notes that as the Royal Parks are as central as they can get, they particularly suffer from the urban heat island effect. “From the worst impacts of drought, the trees aren’t getting as much water, meaning that not only do we need to think differently about how we manage the current stock – but also which trees will be able to cope with these conditions in the future,” he explains.

“Not to mention the high levels of rain which pools across the parks once winter hits, which leads to oversaturated soils which can affect soil oxygen levels and impact on the trees’ nutrient update – affecting their health long term.

“The impacts of a changing climate are very apparent and noticeable,” he decides.

In order to mitigate these issues, Packman explains the team have begun to increase mulch around the trees: “We have a big composting facility in Kensington Gardens, which is being redeveloped, and means we’ve had a significant volume of compost and mulch to utilise.”

Only stepping into his new role in January, Packman says he’s actually been preparing since September last year.

As well as protecting the future treescapes, Packman is also focused on preserving beautiful landscapes so that millions of visitors can always enjoy connecting with the natural environment, now and in the future.  

One area of focus lands on what he describes as “aesthetic pruning”. Around the parks, the tree lined avenues have been left to grow, which often forms a beautiful landscape, other times low-hanging branches can obscure the aesthetic, which “disrupts the feel of an avenue,” he explains.

It’s not strictly just based on pruning, he adds, as better planting also has influence. “In the past, sometimes trees had been planted too close together” therefore better planting locations can also have an effect on aesthetics. “We’re looking for things like formative pruning to make sure trees achieve the form we want them to be in.”

Being that the treescape curator is a brand-new role, the previous Pro Landscaper 30 Under 30: The Next Generation Award winner compares it to being “in my own little bubble. I don’t have a team to oversee but work across different departments,” he explains.

“I’m like an in-house consultant who works under the head of horticulture and landscape strategy.”

In the creation of the new role, the small but influential arboriculture team has more time to work on the static management curation of trees rather than just the risk management side. “It also frees up time for me to focus on species selection,” he finishes.

Also known as Greg Talks Trees, Packman enjoys hosting tree walks and tree talks across London and beyond. A real passion for the outdoors, he hopes to spark a new interest in the fascinating side of trees:

“When you start talking about the cultural importance of trees and how civilisations were built off the back of trees, it really captures people’s imaginations.”

From picking up a Pro Landscaper 30 Under 30 Award in 2018, to being named Arboricultural Association’s Young Arboricultural Professional of the Year in 2022, Packman’s accolades lend themselves to his pure love for trees.

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