March 2020 – Our tree planting season has ended 🙁 . We’re tired – and mucky – but very happy to have facilitated the planting of approximately 2000 native Irish trees in various locations across Inishowen this year. It has been a privilege to help landowners to plant trees for the future and we are very grateful to all the volunteers who turned up each time to plant the trees.
Planting trees is very therapeutic for the volunteers and it’s also a great way to help our planet. There are so many positive benefits from trees – oxygen, food, shelter, habitats, wellness, recreation, or the simple pleasure of gazing at a magnificent old oak.
This year we planted in three locations around Inishowen – at Mary Crowley’s land behind her art studio at Tiernasligo, Urris; in the grounds of Carndonagh GAA; and on Philip McFadden’s ground at Banba’s Crown, Malin Head. But we were also delighted to be able to offer a smaller numbers of trees to a further 10 locations around the peninsula.
Inishowen artist Mary Crowley has decided to re-wild some of her land and this caught the imagination of many people in the North West with Mary giving a lovely interview on BBC Radio Foyle’s Mark Patterson’s show on 05/03/2020. You can listen to the full interview with Mary online (starts at 19 mins)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000fwxd
During two of our planting sessions, the Trust engaged the services of local forester Ross Buchanan of Inish Forestry to provide hands-on workshops on what to plant, how to plant and suggestions on how to maintain the trees for the first few years. We all learned a few simple tricks and we are working on a leaflet containing this information which we will make available through our downloads section in the coming months.
A huge thank you to Donegal County Council and the Dept of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment for funding this project through the Community Environment Action Fund 2019 and to the national charity Trees on the Land and it’s supporters who have provided the trees to the Rivers Trust over the last few years.
