According to a report by Friends of the Earth, some cities have more trees than England’s national parks. So while it might seem that you have less access to nature in the city, that’s not always the case.
Parks are the obvious place to find nature in a city, but even smaller patches of trees will attract birds and insects. You can also encourage your children to pay attention to front gardens and flower pots around your neighbourhood, asking them to identify colours, flowers and any animals they spot.
One of the great things about autumn is that nature comes down to toddler level when the leaves fall, whether that’s in a large park or just along the street.
Where are London’s best leaf-spotting locations?
To help Londoners looking for nature, we analysed the number of deciduous trees in each London borough – to find those with the most colourful autumnal trees.
Our findings focus on trees found in streets, parks and other spaces open to the public, so are publicly accessible, where all Londoners can explore autumn with the kids.
It’s no surprise that London’s more suburban boroughs are home to more autumnal trees than the capital’s built-up heart. Redbridge is known for its plentiful parks and features almost double the number of autumnal trees to be found in Waltham Forest. While third-placed Bromley is London’s largest borough.
Perhaps more surprising is Southwark coming in fourth place, given that it’s one of the more central boroughs. However, this fact only shows that green space is never far away in London and children in London do have access to nature.
Notes on the data:
- The tree data, available through the Greater London Authority (GLA), was originally collected in 2014-15 and updated, where possible, in 2019-20
- Data was not available for six London boroughs
- We analysed data from the London Tree Map and isolated just the trees that change colour with the seasons
