As a keen freecycler, Michelle recently put out a request to the D12 Freecycle Facebook group for a class set of wellies. We kindly received 10 pairs of wellington boots from the department of veterinary in UCD. One of the staff lives locally and saw the post on FB. This saved us having to purchase a class set. Our money instead went towards compost and woodchip.
We have been working with Ashe and Catherine from Pocketforest.ie to develop two exciting projects in Rosary College.
1, We have planted a hedge. It's about 50m long and at the moment contains roughly 80 trees. These are a mixture of Birch, Cherry, Crab Apple, Elder, Hawthorn, Blackthorn. We lay cardboard on the grass first to kill off the grass. Then covered the cardboard with woodchip. A month later we started planting. We received a donation of Hawthorn trees from our local community group Bloomin' Crumlin.
2. We planted an orchard. Again Bloomin' Crumlin came to the rescue and gave us 6 apple trees (some of them are 6 foot tall), 1 pear tree and 1 plum tree. On a rainy Tuesday in March we planted them in a U shape in a sunny grassy area in our school.
We have been working with Ashe and Catherine from Pocketforest.ie to develop two exciting projects in Rosary College.
1, We have planted a hedge. It's about 50m long and at the moment contains roughly 80 trees. These are a mixture of Birch, Cherry, Crab Apple, Elder, Hawthorn, Blackthorn. We lay cardboard on the grass first to kill off the grass. Then covered the cardboard with woodchip. A month later we started planting. We received a donation of Hawthorn trees from our local community group Bloomin' Crumlin.
2. We planted an orchard. Again Bloomin' Crumlin came to the rescue and gave us 6 apple trees (some of them are 6 foot tall), 1 pear tree and 1 plum tree. On a rainy Tuesday in March we planted them in a U shape in a sunny grassy area in our school.
Rosary College is located in the very urban setting of Crumlin. It is a small DEIS secondary school with 160 students. We have spent time since September mapping our campus including our school building, sports courts, grassy areas, trees, shrubs and areas where bulbs are grown. We have a small courtyard and two raised beds where we grow some food. We planted 30 new trees last year and are inspired to grow more. We would love to plant an orchard and would like to buy fruit trees from English's Fruit Tree Nursery in Wexford. We would buy a mixture of varieties, apple, pear, quince, plum and cherry. We would love to liaise with the ladies at PocketForest.ie. Last year our trees came from the Irish charity Crann.ie. We would love to get some more trees from them. We will use the money to buy trees, tree guards, stakes and mulch. A local coffee roasting company gave us some hessian sacks last year which we used to keep the mulch down and keep the grass from growing to aggressively around the baby trees. We hope to work with this coffee roaster again this year. We may have to buy some tools and mulch for the new trees.
