We’re Planting in the Rain with the Service Now Team at Santry Demesne
Check out our photos!
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wL7n95DAi4t4Bu1u25_NIldaIGW3ANsn?usp=sharing
It has been a joy engaging with One Tree Planted through their Irish lead, Caitlin with her pleasant, businesslike and efficient way of doing things. We had a thoroughly enjoyable and productive planting day after some months of planning. The volunteers were enthusiastic and cheerful despite the steadily falling and worsening rain last Tuesday. We are very impressed with the global work of One Tree Planted and it is exciting to collaborate with such a big operation!
What did we Plant?
Scots Pine X 100, Birch – Silver X 100 Birch Common – X 50 Pedunculate Oak X 50 Rowan X 20 Beech X 80
First Day at Work!
Tuesday was the very first day at work of our newest environmental intern, Virginia, our third from the Technological University Dublin Masters in Sustainability Degree Programme. She teamed up with one of the Service Now Team and they planted their first tree in Ireland as a team as both have come to Ireland from overseas. It was a magic moment, made more so by our “Grand Soft Day” – what we call a rainy day in Ireland! The Easy Treesie crew love to see the rain of course because it enables the saplings to have moist roots and of course plenty of rain sees to the watering. The team got to work and it became clear that many were in fact master diggers having had experience of farming and gardening that meant they could work at speed.
It being Easter week we started our morning with some Easter chocolate to provide an energy boost to our participants. A delightful co-incidence is that Ciara of Service Now is known to the Easy Treesie Project Leader as she went to school, swimming and scouts with her daughters many years ago!
Thank you Fingal County Council Tree Team!
The entrance to the Park was blocked by our local council, Fingal’s Tree Team from nearby Swords. A very large cypress branch from one of the ancient trees growing at this historic demesne had blown down the night before in the wind and caused damage to the entrance path, the signage and the chainsaw team were in attendance. This illustrated the very reason our work was so welcome on Tuesday; many of the trees on this estate, site of the historic Santry Wood are being damaged due to increased storm intensity. Many are also have reached a great age which makes them susceptible to damage. Beech trees in the park have been particularly affected and for this reason we prioritised beech planting at this site. It is the only non-native species planted on the day, selected by the Parks team to add to the resilience of the planting. Beech grows very well in this sheltered area. Most recent planting has been of beech hedging however and our contribution will allow for full-grown specimens to grow replacing those majestic ancient beech in the park which are in some cases very old. We are very grateful for the ongoing collaboration of the Local Authority, Fingal County Council, whose Parks leader for this area conducted a new site visit with us prior to this event to determine the precise planting configurations. The saplings are all Irish grown and for this project were provided by the Coillte nursery, Carlow. Participants were delighted to receive our newest Crann – Trees for Ireland magazines. Our last two issues give the story of the great success of our project which went from 100,000 to 200,000 trees planted during 2021 and this week our tree count went over the 330,000 mark. We also had a gift of our latest Crann 2022 calendar with the photograph of our team visit to our President, Michael D. Higgins where we presented him with our 100,000th tree sapling.
Easy Treesie 