Official opening of the Native Irish Tree Trail in Glebe Park
National Tree Week 2019 runs from 31 March to 7th April. The official opening of the Native Irish Tree Trail in Glebe Park @ 11am on Wednesday 3rd of April, and everyone is welcome to attend. This project was a collaboration between Fingal County Council, Balrothery Tidy Towns, Community Association and National School.
The scheme comprised of planting the full variety of the 16 Native Irish Trees in clusters and over 260 trees were planted. The 5th class students of Balrothery National School researched every tree and wrote the information signage that will be placed at the spot of each specimen.
This project is the first of its kind in Fingal and will have a positive impact on biodiversity in the park as each species of tree carries with it a collection of insects, snails, lichens, birds, fungi and birds to name a few. The Oak and Willow have 450 species of insects that feed only on them. Birch trees support 300, Alder and Hazel have over 100. They are the supporters of a wide variety of wildlife. So native species of trees support a far wider variety of flora and fauna than any other trees.
This project is part of a series of planting completed over the past 12 months, over 1,000 native hedging plants that includes spindle, hawthorn, blackthorn, beech wild rose that’ve been planted along the green open space in 6 locations which are Balrothery Wood, Tudor Hamlet, Rosepark, Glebe Park, the north entrance green and the along the R132. In addition 50,000 bulbs have been planted, 25,000 in each location at the north entrance and at the community centre. And a village orchard has been established with 35 fruit trees planted.
The list of native trees planted in tree trail in the park are: Alder, Ash, Aspen, Birch, Crab Apple, Hazel, Holly, Oak, Scots Pine, Rowan, Strawberry Tree, Yew, Whitebeam, Willow, Wych Elm and Wild Cherry.
There already a number of native shrubs in the park including elder, buckthorn, hawthorn and blackthorn and a few new additions have been recently planted including Juniper, Spindle and Wild Rose. All of this planting is invaluable contribution to our natural Heritage for generations to come, and securing Glebe Park as a wonderful woodland for us all to enjoy.