Imagine a line of palms swaying in the breeze – go hunting for coconuts, carve your initials into the trunk or maybe just sit back and spend some time relaxing away from the burning sun.



Welcome to the palm forest – the idea is to build around 8 palms ranging from around 5 to 7 feet tall and dot them round the CampOasis .

• Chicken wire base frame 8 trees at ~7ft per tree (need some spare at the top & bottom) say 50-60ft
• Stiffening rods (couple per tree to stop the trunk bending) – bamboo or something similar
• Brown paper for the trunk section
• Parcel tape to fix the trunk paper
• Card leaves (hopefully some of these will be premade) so should be easy to fix
• Wire strengtheners across the top of the tree to prevent the leaves sagging
• Stapler to fix leaves to the trunk
• Forest rangers to help with the making & lumberjacks to help with the clearance
• Work Gloves – that chicken wire is a bastard
• Coconuts/ Monkeys/ Hammocks and all other general palm tree accessories

I’ll have most of the paper/ smaller ingredients with me but will need some chicken wire & rebar to fix to – does anyone know where I can get some locally?



The palms should be quite simple to build, was thinking of just a chicken wire base frame surrounded by paper. If the leaves are pre done its just a matter of making a wire tube from a length of chicken wire, adding stiffeners (not sure if these will even be required.) and standing it on its end. The fun bit is then covering with brown paper then stapling the leaves on. Once this is done though we’ll need to make them stand up……..


The one thing about these trees is their lack of roots! – this has been solved in the past by fixing them to loose board and then loading the board with some ballast but we are going to need a different system due to the shortage of timber. All ideas appreciated - maybe rebar stakes into the ground then woven into the chicken wire?????

Not sure if they be strong enough to climb whatever we do


Just a few ideas to jazz things up a bit

• Christmas palm tree?? Lots of sparkly decoration with random gifts for people
• Tree house (more of a token effort than usable space)
• Multi coloured leaves – why just green?
• Message Tree
• Trifids – lets move them around someone’s tent during the night.
• Anything and everything else people can think of

The forest is going to need to be felled at the end of it all– possibilities so far include

• Burn ‘em – (will depend on the amount of MOOP generated by the fire)
• Chop ‘em – strip the paper off and crush down for recycling
• Trim ‘em – Turn them into hats! (still leaves the trunks to deal with)

Whatever happens there will still be the wire mesh left in around 6 foot lengths and lots of paper (or ash)

I ‘m going to need some help so all input would be appreciated ideas/ logistics/ creative decorating– (especially with the logistics as will be arriving and leaving by plane so have limited luggage)

Ok – cheers for now - see you all in the funkyforest

Love Urg