The loss of elm trees across the country has been a source of continuing regret but now there is hope that, in time, they could be re-populating parts of both the rural and urban landscape.

The Great British Elm Experiment has been launched by the Conservation Foundation, which has given landowners, local authorities, schools and community gardens the opportunity to plant a young elm tree which has been propagated from stock it hopes will prove resistant to the devastating Dutch elm disease.

The first 250 were sent out in March in the spring of this United Nations Year of Biodiversity.

Among the schools chosen to be recipients were Oxford High School and Glory Farm Primary School in Bicester.

Oxford High School biology teacher Judith Stone is involving members of the school’s Ecology Club in the project. “They will be monitoring its growth, and other aspects such as counting the number of leaf buds,” she said. “There will be a rota for keeping it watered during term-time and other arrangements will be made for the school holidays.

“I think it is an excellent scheme,” she said. “It is a very exciting long-term project. The elm, being a native species, will enhance the biodiversity of our school grounds.”

At Glory Farm Primary School, teacher Marian Tomlins explained the project to the children at a school assembly, before it was placed just in front of a hedge of young maples, dogwood and other native species, recently planted by the children.

“We hope that maybe in 20 years’ time some of the children will be bringing children of their own to school here, will see the elm tree growing and the hedge, and will be able to say that they shared in planting them,” said Mrs Tomlins.

The schools selected to receive the trees are from a wide geographical spread, the furthest north in Ross-shire, at Garve, and the furthest south at Penzance in Cornwall.

The trees have been propagated from cuttings taken from those which are tall enough to have had such a long period of growth that there is an indication that they have shown resistance to Dutch elm disease.

It is recognised that this may not prove to be so in every case, but every one that grows and survives will represent an important success.

The parent stock is from six locations: Boxworth, Cambridgeshire (the source of the tree for Glory Farm School); Colesden, Bedfordshire (that for Oxford High School); Castle Acre, Norfolk; East Meon, Hampshire; and Hatley St George and Keyston, Cambridgeshire.

The young trees were propagated by Martin Day at his nursery in Bedfordshire. This is work in which he has been involved since the 1990s. “This will be a big experiment,” he said. “We may just find trees that are going to be disease resistant.”

An elm advisory group, made up of elm experts and enthusiasts, is being established by the Conservation Foundation. It will review the recorded data supplied by the schools and other planting locations. Each recipient has been asked to supply regular reports of progress of their trees, as regards height, girth, biodiversity and — critically — any signs of Dutch elm disease.

It is hoped that, with time, a new generation of elms will become established across the country and that a new generation will be encouraged to have an interest in elm trees and their related biodiversity.

Dave Shreeve is a joint founder, with David Bellamy, of the Conservation Foundation. He said: “We want to interest a new generation in the elms, so much a feature of the British life and landscape for centuries, and also to try to find out why some trees survived Dutch elm disease.

“So many have disappeared over recent years that we can only hope to replace some. But rather than just give up and forget the elm, we think it is worth a try.”

The Great British Elm Experiment is following another initiative of 30 years ago, and is part of the anniversary celebrations of Elms Across Europe, which in its turn led to the launch of the Conservation Foundation.

Schools taking part in the new project will be linked with another tree propagation programme, in India, run by the Berkeley Reafforestation Trust.

At the launch of the new elm project last September, one of the English elms was planted at a school in the Midlands to grow alongside a Sapporo Autumn Gold elm, a part of the Elms Across Europe scheme, which has been operating since the 1980s.

While officially elms, the trees planted then were not native to this country, they were hybrids, produced by propagating the seeds of healthy elms growing in Siberia and in Japan.

The Conservation Foundation went on to create and manage a wide range of other projects and initiatives and also continued with its interest in elms. It was, therefore, pleased to follow up the suggestion of one of this country’s leading botanists, Frances Rose, that research should be carried out to see if there were any disease-resistant native elms in any parts of the country.

It is estimated that nationally some 25 million elms have been lost from the 1960s onwards.