Crab apple trees in bloom

The park's nine crab apple trees (Malus "Red Glow") are all sporting lovely pink and white blossoms. While the bees and other winged creatures are the main audience for these blossoms right now there should be a nice little harvest in the Autumn for our feathered friends.

People Power ... Making a Difference

What I like about Wexford Tidy Towns? The camaraderie, the craic, the lovely shiney bib and my very own litter picker, the fact that folks smile and say hello and say "fair play hun", the fact that no one lets their dog crap on the footpath when they see the yellow bib, the knowledge that I am actually helping to make the town look better, the way I can sidle up to the Town Clerk and tell him how I would do things if I was the boss, and, at the end of the morning, the hot cuppa, scone and chat.

 http://facebook.com/wexford.tidytowns
http://www.wexfordtidytowns.com

Redmond Park to experience The Tempest!

It looks like the park may be playing host to Shakespeare's The Tempest this coming July. Wexford's Travelling Light Theatre has been in touch to say that, all going well, they would love to put the show on here with July 20th being the most likely date.
The initial email on the subject from Travelling Light Theatre contained this stunning image of a painting by pre-Raphaelite artist John William Waterhouse (1916) with an accompanying quotation from The Tempest.

"'Oh, I have suffered

With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel

Who had no doubt some noble creature in her,

Dash'd all to pieces! O, the cry did knock

Against my very heart."

Garden of Eden Projects

Ever heard of Garden of Eden Projects? We hadn't until someone pointed us in its direction recently: http://www.wetlandsystems.ie/gardenofedenproject.html

Let the intro blurb from that website take it up: "A Garden of Eden Project is one way to help your community to take local action towards local and global environmental improvement. One tangible way to address climate change is to plant trees. One way to raise awareness of peak oil is to grow food in the community, since much of our current production is heavily reliant on oil for machinery, biocides, fertilisers and transportation."

Now, if that doesn't appeal to the environmental activist in you ...!

Treecreeper

Earlier this month bird watchers in Redmond Park spotted a Common Treecreeper. "It has a curved bill, patterned brown upperparts, whitish underparts, and long stiff tail feathers which help it creep up tree trunks. It climbs up tree trunks like a mouse, to search for insects which it picks from crevices in the bark with its fine curved bill. It then flies to the base of another tree with a distinctive erratic flight. This bird is solitary in winter, but may form communal roosts in cold weather."

Spending a penny behind bars ... not any more!

Further improvements at the park this Spring. Remember that ugly fencing that was around the loo in Redmond Park? It's gone!

"Pocket" bio-park opens on 1798 Street

The beautifully landscaped "pocket" biodiversity park on 1798 Street opened with great fanfare last Thursday. It is probably overstating it to call this a park consisting, as it does, of three separate, relatively small spaces. I prefer the title 1798 Street "Gardens" not least because this is intended as a relaxed and intimate space in which neighbours might converge, but also because of the hugely diverse range of plants and trees which have gone in here. There are fruit trees (crab apple, wild cherry, quince), fruit bushes (blackberry, blackcurrant, raspberry), exotically named plants (Cupid’s Dart, Elephant’s Ears, African Lily Blue), climbers (Boston Ivy, Honeysuckle, Climbing Rose). And that's just a sample. Given time, these "gardens" will prove to be be a magnet for birds, bees and bugs. And that, my friends, is biodiversity in action! Once the granite seating is in you will be able to lig do scíth and watch the World passing you by.

To every thing there is a season ...

View from the rear of the park yesterday morning ...