TREE campaigning partnership the Tree Council is urging everyone who has planted trees in the last five years to revisit the saplings in early spring to give them some vital aftercare.

Thousands of young trees planted with care, expense and enthusiasm, die each year from the lack of a few minutes' attention. That is why the Tree Council is launching its 2005 Trees Love Care Campaign over the weekend of March 19. The organisation hopes that many of its 7,500 volunteer tree wardens - and others who have planted trees - during this winter's planting season or in recent years, will choose a time around that weekend to go back and check on their young trees.

Tree council campaigns director Kevin Hand explained: "Planting trees is one of the most rewarding things anyone can do for the environment. Because research suggests that at least one-in-three of all young trees die from lack of care within the first five years, and in some planting projects the loss is more than 90 per cent the Tree Council is stressing the importance of TLC. We are asking people to return at least once a year between March and September to any trees they have recently planted."