Edward plants Jubilee tree in Kenya close to where his mother first became Queen

The Earl of Wessex has planted a tree in honour of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – close to where his mother was staying in Kenya when she acceded to the throne.

Edward placed a Pondo tree sapling in the ground, covered its roots with soil, and sprinkled it with water from a can at the Aberdare Open Fields in the Aberdare National Park.

The chosen site is just 20km from the Treetops Hotel, where the young 25-year-old Princess Elizabeth was staying 70 years ago at the historic moment she became Queen.

It was February 6 1952 and the princess and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh were in the African country on a Commonwealth tour.

They had spent the night at the remote Treetops Hotel, accessible via a ladder, in Aberdare Forest, where they watched baboons in the jungle.

Back in the UK, the ailing King George VI died in the early hours of the morning at Sandringham.

News finally filtered through to royal aides and Philip broke the news to his wife as they walked in the garden of Sagana Lodge, a wedding present from the people of Kenya.

The tree will form part of The Queen’s Green Canopy – a unique tree-planting initiative created to mark the monarch’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022 which invites people to ‘Plant a Tree for the Jubilee’.

The Queen’s Green Canopy said: “While we are a UK-based project, we are delighted to include a special Jubilee tree planted near Treetops.”

Edward – the Queen and the late Duke of Edinburgh’s youngest son – travelled to Kenya for his first overseas visit with The Duke of Edinburgh’s International Award since the start of the pandemic.

The tree planting came on Wednesday as the earl met young people taking part in their Gold Award expedition and heard about their efforts to support environmental conservation.

Edward, who was dressed in a short-sleeved khaki shirt and matching trousers and at times a hat in the Kenyan sunshine, remarked “Right, this is the important bit” as he watered the tree in its new home.

Award participants have planted more than 30,000 trees across Kenya in the past year as part of efforts to tackle climate change.