How many trees does it take for a meadow, a forest, and a football pitch to sit comfortably next to each other? Near Słomiana, close to Stalowa Wola, the answer is: 250 – that’s how many small-leaved linden saplings went into the ground on 15 April, thanks to a partnership with Superior Poland Europe.
Green surroundings for the Słomiana community
The land around the sports pitch in Słomiana is a place the local community relies on every day – children and adults using it for sport, people out for a walk, and residents simply looking for a patch of greenery close to home. The setting is already special in its own right, since meadows and forests stretch out on all sides, giving the area a naturally rural, green character.
We organized a tree-planting action there together with the team from Superior Poland Europe, a company based in Stalowa Wola and part of the Superior Industries group, known for producing automotive components. Because the company operates in the industrial sector, taking part in a local ecological initiative carried particular meaning for its team as a way of giving something back to the natural environment in the region where it operates.
Stalowa Wola has been tied to industry since its founding – the town was built in the 1930s as part of Poland’s Central Industrial Region, around the newly established Southern Works, from which the Stalowa Wola Steelworks that still operates today grew. In heavily industrialized towns like this one, green spaces around sports and recreational facilities take on particular importance, giving residents a place where they can step away, even briefly, from the town’s industrial backdrop.
Our goal was to strengthen the greenery around the sports facility in a way that would fit the existing landscape rather than contrast with it. With meadows and forests already surrounding the site, choosing the species and the scale of the planting was fairly straightforward – the trees needed to look as if they had always been there.
250 small-leaved lindens to start
250 small-leaved linden saplings went into the ground – a species that has accompanied the Polish countryside and cities alike for centuries. The lindens were planted on the land surrounding the pitch, so that over time they will form a green buffer around the sports facility.
Choosing this scale – 250 trees in a single location – means the effect will become visible not within a few years, but over the course of decades. Lindens grow slowly but live for a very long time, so the saplings planted on 15 April have a real chance of accompanying more than one generation of Słomiana residents.
Because meadows and forests already define the surrounding area, the new planting doesn’t introduce a foreign element into the landscape, it completes it. Over time, the strip of young lindens by the pitch will read as a natural extension of the neighboring woodland rather than an artificially added patch of green.
Fast pace, good mood
The group that came to plant the trees showed from the very first minutes that work goes best when there’s room for a good laugh along the way. Participants joked with each other throughout most of the action, which didn’t slow them down at all – all 250 saplings went into the ground at an impressively fast pace.
We didn’t run into any problems along the way – not with the ground, not with the organization, not with the planting itself. A day like this is usually the result of thorough preparation of the site beforehand, combined with a group that approached the task with enthusiasm from the start.
A good atmosphere during tree planting matters beyond the day of the action itself. People who take part in corporate volunteering are more likely to return for future initiatives when their first experience is tied to genuine fun rather than heavy, repetitive physical labor. The laughter and relaxed mood didn’t get in the way of finishing the job well before the end of the day.
For manufacturing companies like Superior Poland Europe, ecological corporate volunteering is increasingly becoming a regular part of corporate responsibility strategy. A few hours spent planting trees together builds team spirit in a way that a meeting at the office or on the production floor simply can’t, and it leaves something behind that people can later revisit and show to family or friends – a specific tree, or an entire row of them, planted with their own hands on one April day.
Why the small-leaved linden?
The small-leaved linden (Tilia cordata) is one of the most recognizable native species in Poland – it has grown here for thousands of years and is deeply rooted in the landscape, language, and culture, as shown by the many towns and villages whose names include the word “lipa” (linden) or “Lipno.”
From an ecological standpoint, the linden offers several notable advantages. Its flowers, which usually appear in June and July, are one of the most important nectar sources for honeybees and wild pollinators during a part of the year when many other nectar-rich plants have already finished blooming. A single mature tree can sustain a significant number of pollinating insects throughout its several weeks of flowering.
Lindens are also remarkably long-lived – specimens several hundred years old still grow across Poland, and some of the oldest exceed a thousand years. The trees planted by the pitch in Słomiana therefore have a real chance of accompanying not only current residents but future generations as well.
On top of that, the linden copes well with polluted air and compacted soil, which makes it a resilient species even near industrial areas, and its extensive root system helps stabilize soil and limit erosion – something that matters especially on an open site like the land around the pitch.
Planting in a location like this carries an additional benefit – it links stretches of landscape that previously sat side by side without a clear transition between them. The strip of young lindens between the pitch and the surrounding meadows and forests can, over time, act as a small ecological corridor, making it easier for insects and small animals to move between habitats. Trees also absorb carbon dioxide and particulate matter, and in summer they lower the air temperature in their immediate surroundings, which matters on an open, sun-exposed site like the one around the pitch.
Bring us to your area
Actions like this one in Słomiana show that a single day of shared work can permanently change the immediate surroundings. If your company is looking for a way to organize corporate volunteering, or if you’d like to green a specific spot in your area, we’re glad to help plan and carry out a similar planting – from choosing the species, through logistics, to the day of the action itself.
What Słomiana gains
The impact of the 15 April action will keep growing, quite literally, year after year. Right now, 250 young lindens are already growing by the pitch in Słomiana, and over time they will form a green buffer around the sports facility, joining the meadows and forests that already surround it.
For the local community, this means more shade on hot days, a more attractive setting for the place where children play football, and another stretch of greenery connecting the sports facility with the landscape around it. For pollinators and other wildlife from the neighboring meadows and forests, it means a new source of food and shelter once the trees mature.
We’d like to thank the Superior Poland Europe team for their engagement, good energy, and efficient work during the planting. We hope the lindens by the pitch in Słomiana will keep growing for decades, as a reminder that even a single day of shared work can change a landscape for a very long time.
The coming seasons will show just how much this spot changes. In spring the lindens will leaf out alongside the surrounding meadows, in summer they’ll cast their first, still modest shade, and in autumn their leaves will join those falling from the nearby forests. In a decade or so, the row of 250 lindens by the pitch in Słomiana could become one of the more distinctive features of this part of the Stalowa Wola area, and a good reference point as we plan future plantings together.
