Planting cherry trees with David and Andrew from Balbriggan Community College and the local ‘Tidy Towns’ volunteers.
With the threat looming of Chalara fraxinea, or ‘ash tree die back’ as it has become known, the message is clear, PLANT MORE TREES OF MANY SPECIES GROWN FROM CLEAN SEED SOURCED IN IRELAND. The other day I answered the call from local ‘tidy town’ activist and friend, Zoe Nelson, ‘Bring all available spades and garden forks to meet up with the Balbriggan Community College third year students and their teachers at Balbriggan Garda Station entrance’. It was time to turn the green desert of a grass verge approach road to the town in to a more interesting environment. Terry and gang had acquired 35 cherry trees and several hundred daffodil bulbs.
Spades and forks in hand, we got planting each tree suitably spaced about 3 metres apart. At the base of each tree we planted a cluster of bulbs. This is a good time of year to plant more trees with the ground being soft, the trees dormant and the rain almost guaranteed to water in the young plants. It is not too late for bulbs either but not much time left really for bulb planting! Anyway, thanks to the large number of students who put their backs in to the work – it was all done in jig time!
