Two years ago after I had cleared a load of gorse and put up deer fencing I planted 100 native trees with www.treesontheland.com. Since then 100s of Downy Birch and lots of Mountain Ash have self seeded.

42 comments

1. cross post this to humans being bros you have done right by Mother Nature

2. OP is there much work involved? As my parents are getting older I’m trying to persuade them to plant trees on their farmland as they aren’t going to be farming it for much longer. Am I right in thinking the fencing part is most of the work?

3. rewilding! you love to see it 🌼🐝

4. How’s the fencing working out?

5. Imagine how nice it’ll be to go in there in ten and twenty years time if you let it off completely over that timeframe. Would really like to buy a huge plot of land and completely rewild it and have a patch in the middle with a little cabin and nice outdoor seats

6. I think I remember you being in Wicklow? Never thought I’d have to deal with deer, but they seem to have eaten some apple trees I planted last year.

7. Christ, is that two years now? I remember you posting about it, feels like yesterday…

   Fair play, man, that’s great work… 👍

8. Thank you, OP.

9. An example to us all. Great work.

10. Much appreciated 🙏🏻

11. Great work.

12. Get yourself a few wolves and the deer are sorted. Also a good guard against our cultured cousints.

    How long will you need the fences for? I assume you’ll want as much wildlife in there as possible when it’s safe to do so?

    Fair fucks anyway, hope it works out

13. Thanks – it’s great to see people rewilding.

    Random thought: what if instead of formal graveyards, people could arrange for their ashes to be spread in a dedicated memorial forest. There’d be no grave markings, maybe just a few benches for mourners to come and sit in a nice forest instead of visiting a grave. This means more land can be used for forestry and less for traditional graveyards which are bad for the environment and use up land. Any thoughts?

14. Is their much management required or is it a plant a forget style job? Would love to do this but would be worried that there’s a lot of work to cut back competing saplings

15. Class far play

16. Potentially silly question, but why are you keeping the deers out? Is it that they see the saplings as a tasty treat?

17. OP there’s a new Citizens Assembly just started on Biodiversity Loss and they’re looking for submissions from the public – what you’re doing is amazing and I’d suspect you’ve plenty of thoughts on the subject. You can submit at: https://www.citizensassembly.ie/en/assembly-on-biodiversity-loss/submissions/submissions.html

18. Great to see. Thank you.

19. Hope to God ash djeback doesn’t come near you. We’ll be felling a lot of the older trees in our area in the next few years unfortunately

20. Well done mate

21. I got native trees from Trees on the Land a couple of times. They are a great group. I planted about 100m of native hedgerows two years ago and they are thriving.

    You don’t need loads of land to make a significant local difference either. Just spare a margin around the edges of the garden for native trees and wildflowers and give yourself less grass to cut with a clover lawn.

22. Fair play op, can’t have been easy. Maybe a stupid question but why do you need the deer fence? Would they eat the young trees?

23. Great job, it’ll be full of birds once the trees grow a bit,

24. Ireland have any issues with the emerald ash borer?

25. @OP, I’m not Irish but I live in Ireland. If I could, I’d kiss you (with your consent, obviously). But should we ever meet, the next pint is on me.

    Edit: because I can’t typo

26. any tips on dealing with grass? I’ve planted a couple hundred trees on former grazing land and grass chokes them out.

27. Will the fence ever be removed? If so, when?

28. I was driving through Donegal with my mum yesterday. We had this very conversation. People need to start planting trees everywhere. Good for you for doing it.

29. I think about your original post often. It’s something I aspire to do someday

30. Youre doing the lords work. If you have space silver birch grows well out in the bog/wetlands dunno why you dont see more of it out there it all gorse heather and those godforsaken heathen pines

31. [deleted]

32. Beautiful stuff Good Sir

33. We need to be careful of tree planting, even of native species. Managing the habitats present is much more beneficial for species diversity.

34. It looks nicely wild and not at all like a planted forest! Nice work

35. Are you getting any financial assistance From the government for this?

36. The best thing about this video is the audio.

    Beautiful.

    You’re doing a great thing.

37. [](https://media.giphy.com/media/JjiieDMHZ6pEI/giphy.gif)

38. Awesome work. You’ve done a great thing.

39. I bought my first batch of saplings from treesontheland earlier this year and did something similar except for the deer fence as I have a rifle and a licence to shoot them. I got a 13 ton track machine in to clear the gorse as it was very dense and on hilly ground, I’m hoping the trees will settle as good as yours have. One thing I missed this year is making gorse wine from the first bloom of the yellow petals, not easy to harvest them but they make a beautiful semi sparkling wine with a hint of almond in the taste and an ABV of about 12%.

40. Thank you kind sir.

    My kids and their kids and their kids thank you also 😍

41. Good stuff outta you!! 👍👍👍

42. The birds seem happy enough with your work! 👍