National Tree Week is big news for an Eco-Visitor Centre like Sonairte. Any campaign which encourages tree planting and awareness of biodiversity which depends on woodland is worth supporting. Some trees and shrubs are now beginning to show their young leaves like elder and raspberry canes. This couple of weeks is last chance saloon for planting bare rooted trees and shrubs.
Once the sap is rising, plants do not take kindly to having their roots disturbed. However, a shrub or tree growing in a pot in the garden centre can be planted out anytime as the roots will have minimum disturbance if the root ball is kept moist and covered with soil.
During Tree Week, 50 pupils from Balbriggan Educate Together N.S. arrived up to Sonairte by bus to be wowed by the wildlife enthusiast and broadcaster Dale Treadwell. The gang got to hear about bats, bugs, birds and butterflies and other creatures of the woodlands around Sonairte. One clever questioner asked, ‘Why don’t flying bats bash in to trees in the dark’? This led to games to teach bat echo-location. A walk through the garden, orchard, river walk and nature trail took us on a tree identification trek up the wooded rath and back to the warm and dry Grand Hall, heated by …. wood!
Dale Treadwell of RTÉ bringing Tree Week alive for 2nd class pupils from Balbriggan on the Ash Walk at Sonairte, Laytown, Co Meath.
Sonairte wishes Dale well in his forthcoming children’s nature programme on RTÉ television. He is welcome at Sonairte anytime www.sonairte.ie. Sonairte thanks Crann, the tree organisation, for co-sponsoring this Tree Week event. The next tree walk and planting workshop is on Monday 22nd April, which is International Earth Day, with forester Noel Dalton.
Trevor is co-founder and was, until his appointment to Government, a board member of Sonairte, the Irish National Ecology Centre, near Julianstown, County Meath which is an Agricultural Training and Visitor centre with a 2.2 acre walled organic garden. He is also a member of Amnesty International, the Dublin Food Co-op, the Irish Organic Farmers’ and Growers’ Association, Organic Trust and a former member of Macra na Feirme. A former teacher and fluent Irish speaker, he relaxes by reading, walking and playing music. His favourite form of relaxation is tending to his prolific organic garden at home in Balbriggan, North County Dublin, an area known by many as Fingal.
