Canary Wharf marks Jewish ‘festival of trees’ with Jubilee Park planting

The Jewish ‘festival of trees’ has been marked by planting a sapling to help brighten up the concrete complex of London’s Canary Wharf.

The festival of Tu B’Shvat is the beginning of the season for trees, occurring on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Shvat, which Biblical scholars believe originally marked the beginning of spring and was also used to calculate the correct time for tithing produce.

But for Canary Wharf Group, last Wednesday’s planting was a chance to add more arboreal pleasure to Jubilee Park, followed by presentations of fruit sent to the elderly at Stepney Jewish community centre in east London.