National Plant Health Week (NPHW) is an annual designated week of action to raise public awareness and engagement on how to keep our plants healthy.
It is a collaborative effort by over 30 organisations from across the UK, who have an interest in plants and are committed to protecting the health of our nation’s plants and trees.
Last month we celebrated the sixth annual NPHW (11-17 May), and below you can some of our highlights as well as from across the wider tree and plant health sector!
Centre for Forest Protection highlights:
Throughout NPHW 2026, we published exciting updates from across our science and education programmes including:
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Highlights from our recent biannual meeting at Kew Gardens where many of our fantastic CFP researchers got together to share updates on their research. |
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A celebration of key achievements from across the CFP to celebrate four years since its launch during NPHW 2022. |
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A blog on how farmers can be tree health heroes, written by Berglind Karlsdóttir, Social Scientist at Forest Research and Lead on our Farmer action for tree resilience project. |
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How we are supporting present and future foresters and tree health scientists through our education & training programme. |
Wider plant health sector highlights:
There was also a wealth of exciting and insightful stories, news and research published throughout the week from across the wider plant health sector including:
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Defra announced the launch of a new £3 million National Centre for Environmental Horticulture and Plant Health, a partnership between the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), that will research and help mitigate existing and emerging threats to our green spaces. |
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The Forestry Commission celebrated 10 years of the ‘Keep it Clean’ tree health campaign – a nationally recognised initiative supporting the long-term resilience of our treescapes. |
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Forest Research, in partnership with the RHS and Coventry University relaunched ‘Check a Sweet Chestnut’ – a national campaign to check-up on the health of our sweet chestnut trees and report findings via the Forest Research TreeAlert system. |
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FERA held a webinar on ‘The Future of Plant Health Science’ which covered key topics including biosecurity and surveillance, the changing policy landscape and innovations in diagnostics and detection. Speakers also highlighted the critical gaps and opportunities shaping the future of the field. |
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Observatree published a blog by Action Oak Research Coordinator Professor Melanie Smith, on the recent Action Oak ‘State of the UK’s Oaks’ report. |
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The Tree Council also published lots of interesting information and resources throughout National Hedgerow Week which took place the week before NPHW on 4-10 May 2026. This included the ‘Helping the Mighty Hawthorn!’ webinar, which gave an introduction to an ongoing hawthorn research project seeking to better understand the resilience of – and threats to – this iconic hedgerow species. Watch the recording here: National Hedgerow Week 2026: Helping the Mighty Hawthorn. |
Across the sector, we have also been celebrating the huge variety of plant health scientists and plant health heroes who are dedicated to helping protect our plants and trees.
Find out more about NPHW by visiting National Plant Health Week | Plant Health Action and searching #PlantHealthWeek and #NPHW2026 on social media!
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