Cloudforest Four update
Last week, we spent some time roaming through Cloudforest Four in Ennistymon, catching up with how the wildflower meadow and our newly planted forest is doing.
Wildflower Meadow
While the full flush of summer is fast leaving the meadow, we were very privileged to capture some fantastic dewy spider webs - check out our gallery below!
In the first year of sowing a wildflower meadow, the annuals really steal the show - but we’re expecting a mix of re-seeded annuals and the perennials to show up next year. Based on the clay soil and the species naturally found in this area of Clare, we sowed the following species:
Birdsfoot Trefoil, Black Meddick, Bladder Campion, Bladder Campion, Corn Marigold, Corn Poppy, Corncockle, Cowslip, Devil's Bit Scabious, Eyebright, Meadow Buttercup, Fleabane, Lesser Knapweed, Meadowsweet, Ox-eye Daisy, Purple Loosestrife, Ragged Robin, Red Clover, Ribwort Plantain, Selfheal, St John’s Wort, Water Avens, Woundwort, Wild Angelica, Yarrow, Yellow Agrimony, and Yellow Rattle.
Not all of them were evident when we visited, but the existing seed bank had certainly done its work and sent up lots of Redshank across the meadow too.
The funds for the wildflower seed to sow in this meadow was generously provided by CoolPartner Solar Clean Robotics earlier this year. We are very grateful to Justin and the team for helping us to get started on the development of this fantastic habitat in Cloudforest Four!
Forest Update
In March, Cloudforest Four was planted with over 15,000 native Irish trees and even though there weren’t enough hours in the day to visit each tree individually, we took a good stock take of the general health and progress of our new trees.
While the stresses of the poor summer were evident, native Irish trees are a hardy bunch, and we’re expecting the few that were a bit wind-burnt to bounce back once they’re better established!
We were also delighted to see so much wildlife making use of their new homes - the sawfly caterpillars were out in force munching on the Alder leaves, not that they’d slow it down much… The Alder was shooting skywards wherever we looked!
Stay tuned, and we’ll keep you updated regularly on how this latest Cloudforest develops over the coming months.
