It’s with great pleasure we welcomed the PayPal team to the wonderful Santry Demesne at Northwood Park on Friday last. The day dawned bright and sunny and it was good to see some of our volunteers tuck into a hearty breakfast at the nearby Gourmet Food Parlour – great supporters of our tree planting parties over the years – nearby. What fun; one of the breakfasters recognised the Easy Treesie Project leader as his teacher when in school in Junior Infant class many years before. And he declared that he had always thought her his favourite teacher! This touching reunion did not impede Orla from insisting that Colm join the work parade after breakfast even should it rain! One important question for our team was; was this tree maintenance exercise going to prove very difficult. “No”, Orla responded, pointing to the large “Easy Treesie” sign on her GAA T-shirt. “It’s August! It’s warm and sunny! We will pace ourselves and it will certainly not be hard!”
We were especially delighted to welcome some 7 children and a fluffy dog to the event! Our project, to plant a million trees with Ireland’s million school children is of course a children’s project and we love family participation. Our Tree Maintenance workshop was part of a series of events over the years held to mark our National Heritage Week. We have held Tree Identification walks in Greenore, Co. Louth and St. Anne’s Park, Dublin in collaboration with experts from Coillte, our national forestry body and Dublin City Council Parks personnel. This year our project was also participating in a panel on sustainability in Tipperary Town and distribution of educational materials on the Cooley Penninsula. So the Easy Treesie – Crann team have had a busy week and we were excited to have Aoife, our summer intern, a recent graduate of nearby Dublin City University, Edward, our volunteer from Swords Woodland Association and Kevin, of Fingal Operations Department supporting our two groups on this special day.
Following a safety talk outlining safe practice and distribution of protective gloves, the group heard of the importance of the work being undertaken this day. Planting trees is very fine however weeds can greatly impede the growth of young saplings, taking from the supply of water and nutrients essential for young plants. The exercise of trampling and removing weeds from the base of the young trees gets them off to a flying start. It’s a great help to the school children who started this project several years ago and who are on their summer holidays at present that such a hard working group lineout to carry out this vital work. Following a demonstration by veteran gardener Edward, the 2 groups got stuck in with gusto. Our Parks Manager Lourda has demonstrated her dance, “The Stomp” on video for our project and several families joined in a weed-trampling dance par excellence, including their own songs. After an energetic session we gathered under a majestic oak tree for a debrief. We’ll did the stomp; stamping on any weeds/grasses choking our newly-planted saplings in this magnificent park. We do like weeds, just not around the lovely oak, beech, holly, hazel and sycamore we have planted in collaboration with Fingal Co. Council, local school children and the business community with support from our many sponsors and well-wishing VolunTREE workers. Our HERITAGE WEEK TREE MAINTENANCE session had limited places as we like to have a chance to converse casually, answer any questions and join the fun. We asked that participants wear long trousers tucked into boots and thick socks as there can be nettles, briars etc. We’ll brought the gloves but anyone particular about colours or style can bring your own. Also raingear as our events will take place rain or shine with the exception of when there are weather warnings. It’s actually easier to flatten the weeds in the rain because they are heavier with the weight of water.
This maintenance is essential in the first couple of years after planting as without it our baby trees can be engulfed by the long grass. We will do minimal disturbance to the ground but there can even be mud…changes of clothes useful for going home, we always advise. We’ll told our participants all about our project which is planting 1M almost-all-heritage-trees all over the country; we are now on over 330k planted! Our deadline; 2024.
Paid car parking was available at Crowne Plaza car park, across the road from the event. We invite participants to travel sustainably and bring a re-usable water bottle as it’s thirsty work. You invited the volunteers to read more about our project at http://www.easytreesie.com and hear the story of how we are joining with children in over 80 countries as we Plant-for-the-Planet as part of the world Trillion Tree campaign, @1t.org. Of course there is no point planting the trees if we neglect them in their first years of life, that’s why we checking up on them, adding tags if necessary and we picked litter we found though there is usually almost none here (Hats off to the Fingal Operations Team)! We are grateful to Kevin for taking away the litter collected to dispose of it at the depot. We are very grateful for the support of the Dept. of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and our very many supporters in our ambitious challenge as we re-leaf Ireland with a tree for every school child. As you know we work in association with registered charity Crann, Trees for Ireland. Our motto of this UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021 – 2030? #stoptalkingstartplanting. We invited participants to plan to plant a tree in their own garden, local public area or on a farm. Our aim is to reduce global temperature by 1 degree C this decade so buying 17 years to find more lasting solutions. #stopagcainttosaighagcur #stoptalkingstartplanting.
What hard work had been carried out! The whistle blew; it was time for a rest.
And what a rest! Not five minutes’ walk from the planting site is the Santry Community Gardens, which in 2022 won a place in the top ten of such gardens in the world in the People’s Choice vote. The gardens were closed to the public on this morning but its director, Ciarán had sent the Park Ranger to meet us with a key to the locked gates of this walled enclosure. This allowed us to enjoy a private tour of the magnificent orchard which features 90 heritage Irish trees. We admired apple, plum, cherry, fig and pear as well as the new wildflower meadow, rockery and pond. It was a first visit for many of the participants who were most impressed with the great variety of food growing in this urban paradise and the colours and birdsong at every bend. We met some of the gardeners who were busy at their poly tunnels and harvesting their produce and some local of our volunteers expressed an interest in getting to know this facility better on an upcoming visit. A presentation of educational materials and chocolate was made to the Fingal Parks Ranger, Kevin and the Community Gardens leader, Ciarán on behalf of the joint initiative and opportunities for further collaboration was discussed at this location.
Since our project is powered by chocolate, hand-carved wooden bowls of dark, milk, orange, almond and mint chocolate were distributed along with the latest and some back-issues of our educational “Crann – Trees for Ireland” magazine. Our team enjoyed some great conversations with the participants about our species choice, plans for the coming seasons, progress of planting in Ireland and the possibility of future delightful time out from screen time acting as stewards for nature for adults, children (& even dogs!) alike.
Tree Maintenance? – Easy Treesie!
19 August, 10am – 1pm
Orla Farrell
- Entrance to Northwood Park, Santry (Opposite Crowne Plaza Hotel)
- Crowne Plaza Dublin Airport, Northwood Avenue, Northwood, Dublin 9
- D09 X9X2
- Co. Dublin – Fingal
Note: This event is now fully booked.
We’ll be doing the stomp; stamping on any weeds/grasses choking our newly-planted saplings in this magnificent park. We do like weeds, just not around the lovely oak, beech, holly, hazel and sycamore we have planted in collaboration with Fingal Co. Council, local school children and the business community with support from our many sponsors and well-wishing VolunTREE workers. Email orla@easytreesie.com with HERITAGE WEEK TREE MAINTENANCE in the subject line by July 27th at 5.00 p.m. or while places last to be added to our list of helpers, places are limited. Please wear long trousers tucked into boots and thick socks as there may be nettles, briars etc. We’ll bring the gloves but if you are particular about colours or style do bring your own. Also raingear as the event will take place rain or shine. It’s actually easier to flatten the weeds in the rain because they are heavier with the weight of water.
This maintenance is essential in the first couple of years after planting as without it our baby trees can be engulfed by the long grass. We will do minimal disturbance to the ground but there might be mud…change of clothes useful for going home. We’ll tell you all about our project which is planting 1M almost-all-heritage-trees all over the country; we are now on over 330k planted! Our deadline; 2024.
Paid car parking available usually at Crowne Plaza car park, across the road from the event. Please travel sustainably and bring a re-usable water bottle, it’s thirsty work. You can read more about our project at http://www.easytreesie.com and hear the story of how we are joining with children in over 80 countries as we Plant-for-the-Planet as part of the world Trillion Tree campaign, @1t.org. Of course there is no point planting the trees if we neglect them in their first years of life, that’s why we’ll be checking up on them, adding tags if necessary and picking litter if we find any though there is usually non here (Hats off to the Fingal Operations Team)! We are very grateful for the support of the Dept. of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and our very many supporters in our ambitious challenge as we re-leaf Ireland with a tree for every school child. We work in association with registered charity Crann, Trees for Ireland. Our motto of this UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021 – 2030? #stoptalkingstartplanting. If you can’t make it on the day then why not plan to plant a tree in your own garden or on your farm and add it to the UN Counter? Our aim is to reduce global temperature by 1 degree C this decade so buying 17 years to find more lasting solutions. #stopagcainttosaighagcur.
Easy Treesie 