Green Legacy Hiroshima Project

September 29, 2020

Greenmount Campus is looking forward to the arrival this October of some very special tree seeds coming all the way from Hiroshima in Japan. The seeds will have been collected from trees that survived the devastating Hiroshima atomic bomb some 75 years ago. Seeds of the “Hibaku-jumoku” (Japanese for survivor trees) through the Green Legacy Hiroshima Project Initiative are being entrusted to partner organisations in countries around the world. Greenmount Campus is delighted to have been recently accepted as a suitable partner organisation and this autumn will receive seeds of two tree species, the Maidenhair Tree (Ginkgo biloba) and the Oriental Plane (Platanus orientalis).

The seeds carry the double message of caution and hope, recalling both the destructive power of war but also the resilience of mankind and nature. The seedlings raised are being planted in Botanic Gardens and Colleges throughout the world as a living symbol of peace for the generations to come.

Horticulture students at Greenmount, will prepare the seeds for germination in the college’s state of the art plant propagation facility in October or November 2020. Here they will be subjected to three months of vernalisation. Once the seeds have germinated around May 2020 they will be potted up and grown on in the nursery and when large enough they will be planted in the campus grounds, their long term care be entrusted to the college’s skilled horticultural team.

Regular updates about the progress of the Hiroshima seeds will be posted so you can follow the excitement of their story.