WHILE many of us will end up pushing up daisies in a churchyard, TV botanist David Bellamy hopes to turn himself into part of a woodland glade.

Professor Bellamy, who lives near Hamsterley Forest, County Durham, is a passionate supporter and patron of The Arbory Trust, an organisation which wants to promote environmentally-friendly burials in specially designated woodland.

Interviewed in The Standard, the newsletter of the Funeral Standards Council, Prof Bellamy said: "It's a great idea to provide well-managed sites that will slowly but surely become a woodland full of wildflowers, wildlife and bird song for burial.

"I'd definitely like to be a tree when I die."

The trust has already carried out 11 burials at its first site in Cambridgeshire, but is looking to expand throughout the UK.

A passionate conservationist, Prof Bellamy said: "I'd like to follow Dame Barbara Cartland and go in a 'green' cardboard coffin, ready to become part of a living tree."

The TV star, who has written more than 40 books, said he could not think of anything better than "my tree ending up as a beautiful piece of antique furniture in the Victoria and Albert Museum to be admired for years to come. What an epitaph that would be".

For details about the Arbory Trust call (01284) 749974.