The Planting season is long so I hope that there are decent stocks left after all this arctic weather.

It was a short enough drive from Dublin, but, a word of warning, don’t rely on Google maps to get you there, it brought me about a mile in the wrong direction. Once you arrive there’s a small amount of parking available.

I’ve included a custom Google map below with a marker at the entrance to make things easier if you decide to visit. Incidentally this is the first post where I will be including the scientific names for each tree I mention. I may go and edit them into older posts and I may not. Here’s the evidence of me trying anyway. There’s a great mix of tree species in Knocksink; Sessile Oak (Quercus petraea), Holly (Ilex aquilinum) and Hazel (Corylus avellana) ,  Beech (Fagus sylvatica) ,  Ash (Fraxinus excelsior), Sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus), Elder (Sam bucus nig),  Goat Willow (Salix caprea),  Elm (Ulm us glabra), Hawthorn (Crataegus m onogyna), Silver Birch (B. pendula) and Whitebeam (Sorcus aria).

This was the first time I had a chance to try out that tree identifying app on my Iphone. Unfortunately it couldn’t help with the first tree I cam across.  Luckily I had by much more knowledgeable better half with me who correctly identified it as  Goat Willow (Salix caprea). I had never seen this particular species before. The leaves are alternate and elliptical with a fuzzy surface on the underside of the leaf. The app also failed to identify Hazel (Corylus avellana) , there’s definitely scope for an Irish oriented identification app I feel. The first tree the app identified correctly was the Beech (Fagus sylvatica). The application was built by a German I think so it is focused on the central European region.

See below for images of this trip, if you mouse over the image you will get a description of what it is.

I decided to stop using the app and just get my advice from an actual botanist for the rest of the trip. We saw seeds from Ash trees and I collected hazelnuts and acorns for planting on the way back to the car, fording the stream in the process. There hasn’t been much rainfall for this time of year so it was possible to keep totally dry doing it. We also spotted some Orchids that had gone over in the flood plain of the stream. I hope to plant the acorns and hazelnuts so I’ve put them in the fridge to stop them drying out. I found this guide to growing Hazelnuts from seed and this page about growing oak trees from acorns. I realise the chances of one of these acorns growing into a mature Oak are slim but you have to start somewhere. I think I will try and grow some of them in a window box to see if they germinate at least.

Image Gallery

Google Map

Google Map

Links

Wicklow Nature Reserves - http://www.npws.ie/en/NatureReserves/Wicklow/

Site description http://www.npws.ie/en/media/Media,4031,en.pdf

This week I downloaded a great app for the iPhone called “Identify Tree”. It’s an app that allows you to identify trees bty using a key of images of the leaves.  It costs a paltry 79 cent to buy, very much worth it in my opinion.

It covers all central European deciduous trees, but if you want to identify Conifers then you need to buy an additional  tree pack at 79 cent.

You can list trees alphabetically or by group. It also lists the botanical and plain English names. Every tree in the list is accompanied by images detailed information i.e Leaf arrangement, Bloom, Bark,  Location, Soil type etc…. Check out a quick demonstration

Here are some features in the newest version

• bigger pictures in detail
• better zooming (apple like)
• new list (grouped)
• double tap zoom

A few months back I found an initiative for planting millions of trees in South America, I couldn’t remember what it was so I did a Google search for “Plant a million trees”. Well, it seems like planting multiples of a million trees is what all the cool kids are doing these days.

Here are the sites I found. I’ll put these in the links section later too. Maybe someday I could be responsible for planting a million! I’d be happy with a small fraction of that to be honest, but always aim high.

Some of these are quite inspiring, I’ll take a close look at some of them and do more involved posts. In the mean time take a quick look yourself.

www.plantamillion.org
www.amilliontreesformichael.com (Michael Jackson that is)
www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2266202/sainsbury-pledges-plant-two
www.plant-for-the-planet.org
www.care2.com/greenliving/boy-inspires-planting-of-one-million-trees.html
http://internationaltreefoundation.org/scotland-to-plant-one-million-trees
www.america.gov/st/energy-english/2010/March/20100317115834wbhcolb0.9490473.html
www.milliontreesnyc.org

I wasn’t sure about planting depths, but they already had some roots, so I just dug a hold to match the depth of the existing soil. I dug a triangular shaped hole as It seemed the thing to do. The shovel I had was quite broad so a square hole would have removed to much earth.

Google Map

Google Map

It’s an old style collect the tokens and post them in type of competition. You fill out a form and send in 3 tokens and that’s it. So get the independent and enter. Good luck!

I decided to stop at the Glen of the Downs forest on the way back. I always visit here a few times at different seasons throughout the year. All the Oak trees were completely bare but there some really richly coloured beech trees to be seen. I walked to the top to the hill to the remains of the buildings that were once there. The view was fantastic and the visibility was great in the cold winter air. Took some photos and got back home to wrestle the christmas tree into it’s base.

Image Gallery

Google Map

Google Map

We went through Molls Gap then turned right. Continued down that road for a few miles. We stopped at Ladies View for a quick photo. A little further down the hill we stopped by Galway’s Bridge and the now abandoned and boarded up church.

Just beside the car park is a path into the forest.  The weather was very wet, so it was decided that it would be a short trip. The forest consisted of mature native Irish Oak and some of the biggest Holly trees I have ever seen. There was an absolute torrent of a river flowing under galways bridge and down some rapids. I don’t know the name of that river so I’d appreciate it if someone could let me know. I’m sure it’d be on an OS map.

The woods itself was mature, lots of moss on the rocks and trees. Plenty on leaves down due to the season. Not many Oak seedlings unfortunately. There was plenty of evidence of the dreaded Rhododendron, new growth and heaps upon heaps of dead ones after some obvious clearing out. Again, not an acorn to be seen, only a few rotten ones from last year more than likely. I found some pine cones that had been chewed on by squirrels though.

The forest floor was a veritable carpet of fallen leaves and I got some nice photos of moss, holly berries and oak leaves. My companion also identified a rather strange growth I found on the underside of an oak leaf as an “Oak Gall”". The gall was formed by wasp larvae laying eggs on the tree that cause a mutation in that manifests itself as a gall formed around the eggs. This provides food and shelter for the emerging larvae. I tried to find some more info on it and found this interesting blog, you can also learn more on this Wikipedia article.

Check them all out in the gallery below.

Image Gallery

Google Map

Google Map

We also swung around to see if there was any windfall from a crab apple tree we spotted in the industrial estate. There was so I picked up around twelve apples to harvest seeds from.

Harvest

Extraction

I decided to extract the seeds from the crab apples and yew berries. The apples proved to be quite simple though it’s easiest to extract them from ones that are slightly rotten. The Yew berries were a different story. I started crushing them by hand and it soon turned into a sticky mess. I recommend that people use some kind of tool for this process if they have to do it.

I washed and left them to dry, then bagged and labelled them, wrapped them up tightly and put them in the fridge. I read that seeds are supposed to be kept at a temperature 2 or 3 degrees Celsius for longterm storage. So I’ll see what condition they’re in in a few months.

Google Map

After a short drive to Rathdrum in the lashing rain, I headed up the road to Laragh on the lookout for an entrance to one of the forests. I missed them all the first time around. Eventually I spotted a sign for the Clara Vale church which I knew was near a forest to visit.

I drove across the lovely old stone bridge and parked. An unfortunate couple were getting married that day in the monsoon-like conditions. As it was so wet, I had to take leaves home to identify them later. I couldn’t risk the books!

The forest was mostly Oak (I don’t know if they were Sessile or Pedunculate as there were no acorns visible) and Scots Pine. There was a lot of young Beech as well. Other native species spotted were Rowan, Ash, Hazel and Holly. Of the non native varieties I saw Sycamore and a fair few conifers down by the river that I couldn’t identify.

I managed to take some photos and even a video while trying to keep my camera dry. They look ok considering the conditions. The video gives a flavour of how windy it was.

The Google map insert shows the location of the forest itself, you can see the church and bridge to the west of the marker.

Image Gallery

Google Map

Video

Click here to view the embedded video.