In many countries, including my home country of Scotland, there is now a huge effort to try to reforest large areas of land. This tends to concentrate on large, unbroken patches of land, and with good reason: such forests are critical for protecting wildlife and human health and have enormous benefits for carbon storage and water cycling. But while smaller patches of forest have historically been somewhat dismissed as useful nature reserves, they do have benefits. One big plus is that they are easier to fit into an urban area – and thus be nearer to where most people live. And emerging evidence is showing we might have underestimated their benefits for nature too.