ReWild Wicklow, the organisation spearheading the initiative, was formed in 2021 and their aim is to monitor, protect, enhance and increase native habitats in Wicklow so that it can support a vast biodiverse, balanced ecosystem of historical flora and fauna.<\/p>\n
The group has established a community native tree nursery in Newtownmountkennedy to collect seed mainly from within the national park and other National Park and Wildlife Service (NPWS) reserves to preserve the genetic diversity of local trees.<\/p>\n
Their nursery is currently growing common native trees such as oak, birch, alder, hazel, hawthorn and rowan. They also have a small amount of the rare tree species aspen and Irish whitebeam and are asking the public to report any locations these trees are growing in their natural state in the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been working on two big grant projects this year,\u201d said chairperson Danny Alvey. \u201cThe first was a grant of \u20ac30,000 received from the Wicklow County Council Community Climate Action Fund towards our tree nursery. We\u2019ve used it to help us upgrade the site with proper infrastructure including a polytunnel, irrigation and electricity, as well as expanding out the number of raised beds and filling them up with thousands of more saplings.<\/p>\n
“The nursery is a special project in conjunction with the NPWS rangers of Wicklow Mountains National Park aimed at collecting seed from veteran trees in and around the mountains to grow and plant back into the park, and in doing so protecting the unique genetics of our native Wicklow trees.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re particularly interested in finding more mature aspen and Irish whitebeam trees which might be growing around the county. We have a monthly volunteer day here on the first Saturday of each month and there’s always a great variety of interesting tasks for new volunteers to help us with.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the Tree Council of Ireland, whitebeam trees are quite small and have their leaves have a pale under surface, while their cream flowers ripen to red berries. The hard pale wood was traditionally used for small furniture such as the legs of stools.<\/p>\n
There are several whitebeam species native to Ireland that may be found in wild woods or cliffs where they have escaped grazing. It can also be found in hedges.<\/p>\n
If you are looking for aspen trees, you may need to listen. Wexford naturalist Jim Hurley describes them as having \u201cthe most wind-sensitive leaves of any of our wild plants\u201d.<\/p>\n
The poplar tree\u2019s leaves have pale green blades that are roundish and have toothed margins, with long, flat stalks. These stalks mean the leaf blades flutter in the slightest breeze.<\/p>\n
In order to help aspen, Irish whitebeam, and other native trees thrive in Wicklow, ReWild Wicklow has also been working on a native woodland expansion and protection initiative supported through a \u20ac20,000 grant from the Heritage Council.<\/p>\n
Danny added: \u201c Throughout the summer we\u2019ve been building small and medium size deer enclosures to protect small plots across sites in Wicklow such as in the valleys of Glencree and Glenmacnass and down at the East Coast Nature Reserve near Newcastle.<\/p>\n
“During the winter we will return to these enclosures and plant them up with between 100 and 1,000 native tree saplings depending on the plot of land. We\u2019ve found planting in this way is much more cost-effective and successful than just individually planting each tree in a tube or wire cage.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve also purchased 16 deer high seats with this grant to help local hunters manage our sika deer population next to native woodland sites.<\/p>\n
“Right now the deer numbers are way too high and they destroy young native trees and any chance of natural regeneration. We\u2019ll be out planting trees all winter long and anyone is welcome to join us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The public can report sightings of aspen or Irish whitebeam, or join the volunteer list, via rewildwicklow.ie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ReWild Wicklow, the organisation spearheading the initiative, was formed in 2021 and their aim is to monitor, protect,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[18,440,19,17,8549,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-182027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-myles-buchanan","13":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115553753140474672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}