#rewilding #biodiversity #nature
Come on a tour of 5 acres of abandoned Irish farmland that I plan to manage for wildlife! With plans for woods, ponds, meadows and more.. I have a lot ahead work ahead!
0:00 Intro
3:10 Wildflower Meadow Plans
5:40 Woodland Plans
9:29 Pond Plans
12:03 River Plans
15:59 Nesting and Roosting Boxes
19:07 Micro Habitat Plans
21:01 Permaculture Plans
22:55 More Plans!
#wildlifeconservation #irishnature
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26 Comments
Great plans!
Looking forward to seeing how this progresses
Get acorns right now from your local ancient woodland – pot them up then plant them out in 2 years when tall enough to compete with long grass.
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Great plans šš» I do native wildflower meadows professionally so in terms of the first field you need to remove the grass and expose the soil otherwise the yellow rattle wont take due to thick layer of dense grass that fall over the years. If you donāt want to bring heavy machinery scythe it down and use chain harrow behind quad bike. The germination rate will be much improved. Not sure what way you want to build the pond I use rubber liner but if you donāt want to use liner dig test hole about 1m deep (or whatever depth you want the pond be) and check water table. If sufficiently high and yo have clay soil you might get away with minidigger compacting the walls. The pond itself doesnāt need to be too deep so make sure you have lots of shallow margins, thats the most important habitat for majority aquatic life.
Wonderful I learn so much listening to your plans look forward to the next one
Bless ya mate, good luck with it
Also pond by the river, the water table will be higher
Really excited for the wild flower meadow and wet lands! Great rewilding plans youāve got
Amazing , good luck with it !
Try and make sure you don't shade your meadow by planting your trees to the north side of the plot.
I have found that Yellow rattle can struggle sometimes controlling Yorkshire fogš
Every small and big river that goes to the coast in Wicklow or joins another that does, good chance it has sea trout and maybe salmon late in the season. Every river in Wicklow has some sea trout. That looks like a spawning stream. At the very least, you'll have brown trout, eels, minnow. Keep an eye out from now on for brown trout redds and from early November on for sea trout. Salmon mid-December on. You might be surprised. They'll turn up in very small streams
Brilliant stuff šš¼ Iāll be watching and learning all the way hoping to do something similar myself, best of luck āš»
It`s really great that you are helping nature recover. I look forward to seeing what happens.
Thanks for sharing.
Amazing looking property. Such potential. You should have a permaculture consultant at least do a walk around and just make sure your plans are not causing erosion events or you are not putting infrastructure in an area that may flood. Can put you in contact. š
Awesome! Excitied to see this develop.
Could be good to ringbark some of the sycamores at woodland edges to create snags. I think it may encourage barn owls as they could use the dead branches as hunting perches (along with other birds of prey and flycatchers). Or you could just ringbark individual branches if you don't want to kill the whole tree. Some other microhabitats I can think of that would be relatively easy to create would be tree scrapes, coppiced trees, snapped branches, partially buried logs, and wet and dry areas of bare earth on the meadows.
Have a mini version of this, great to see others on board in Ireland, gives me hope! Absolute pleasure to watch my trees develop through the seasons and my pond mature. That river and bank are fantastic to have on your land!
Such an exciting project! I left Ireland to practice and teach regenerative agriculture and plant food forests in Spain, but I do maintain a keen interest in what's happening there. Best of luck, and if I can help in any way, feel free to shoot me a DM.
Want to see more people rewilding land in Ireland? Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WmtqIVcHw8
I can't agree with your reasoning not to plant ash.
Plant as many as you can. 99% may die, but the 1% will be the progenitors of future generations.
Those that don't make it to full maturity will still support biodiversity by giving nesting sites for birds like woodpeckers and food for beetles and fungi and a myriad of other species that depend on decay.
I really enjoyed this, which i stumbled across when searching for antidotes to the misery unfolding in Palestine. I was particularly interested in the Yellow Rattle, though I don't know if it would thrive where i am (fairly high altitude, thin, dry acid soil, Wicklow mountain area) Wish I had a river ! Have quite a bit of bog – which i love – plus a little stream which mostly dries up in the summer months. Of course, there are many deer – for me, their grace and beauty far outweigh any 'problems'; the truth is that humans are the greatest threat to biodiversity : thousands of acres of Sitka spruce ,for a start ! Fencing, or individual tree-guards, work most of the time. good luck with the work !!
Wish we could jump forward 10 years to see how amazing this will be!
This is great to see and I am looking forward to learning more. Best Wishes
Hey, I'm from Dublin and in my late thirties. I've been dreaming about doing something similar to this for years.
I've recently found out i'm about to become a father. This has given me even more of an impetus to change how I live and where I live.
Central Wicklow and Meath around the Boyne valley are where i'm looking.
I'm also looking for more than 5 acres. Maybe 15-25.
Thank you so much for documenting this adventure. It's so interesting to me and lots of people around the world. You're very lucky to be living the dream.
I wish you and your family the very best.
We have done this. 6 years later it's coming together
If you were depending your livelyhood on farming you would not be rewilding this farm .