Fiona
@pondsntrees
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We live on a much loved acre of rewilded land in the west of Ireland. Intense dislike of strimmers, chainsaws, spraying, new roads and cruelty to animals.
Joined December 2021
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
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We've been fed a myth.
Wildflowers - bad - dig out/spray/strim, replace with non native garden centre flowers.
But why?
Wildflowers are beautiful. Our wildlife feed & breed on them.
Answer - wildflowers are free, everything else costs money...
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My mum planted all the trees in our small woodland about thirty years ago. How delighted she would be if she could see it now, it's simply magical😍
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My mum's woodland (about half an acre) looking particularly magical in the midday light. She planted all the trees about 30 years ago. All rescue trees or grown from seed. She would be simply delighted to see her wonderful achievement🥰
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I know that self seeded woodland is better. But there's me in 1988 and the same spot in 2023 after my mum planted all the trees in 1994.
Birds, bat's, ferns, mosses etc just appeared and its infinitely better than a field. And it's inspiring too 😊💚💚
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Someone has mowed, strimmed and cleared away the masses of wildflowers that looked so amazing along our lane, leaving a lot of nothingness behind.
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The grass has just been cut and strimmed at Westport Quay. Can I just ask, do you think this is this what tourists want to see? Or would they prefer to see wildflowers butterflies and bees?
@MayoCoCo
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Here's a bit of verge in our lane that has not been cut 😊💚
Meadow Sweet and Purple Loosestrife, just so beautiful. I'm praying the strimming happy neighbours will leave it for the pollinators 🙏
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Just look at this greenway and the fence which no wildlife can get through. The planners decided that an environmental impact was not needed. Really it would make you despair.
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A big cutting machine came along our lane today and broke my heart.
It's only sideways because I was so upset to see the meadow sweet and purple loosestrife completely gone I couldn't even take the photo properly.
Here's a bit of verge in our lane that has not been cut 😊💚
Meadow Sweet and Purple Loosestrife, just so beautiful. I'm praying the strimming happy neighbours will leave it for the pollinators 🙏
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Our newly dug driveway in 2008. We resisted pressure to plant it & left it alone to see what nature could do. Today, absolutely entirely self seeded & in summer, along the edges there is a multitude of wildflowers. Turns out nature doesn't need us!
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The tractor man who cut all the wildflowers along our lane last week even cut all the meadow sweet at the top of our driveway, on our property.
It was doing no harm to anyone and it looked beautiful too.
It's just dead & lifeless in our lane now.
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This was our driveway in 2006. We resisted huge pressure from friends and family to plant it up, put on a horrible plastic sheet with shrubs sticking through (😝) but no, we left it to nature🥰and now it's teaming with life😍
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My sign is gone.
Half the bank and all the long established Knapweed, Purple Loosestrife, Yarrow, Dandelions etc
All the overwintering insects above & below the soil, gone.
Shelter and homes for small mammals, gone.
Nice new fence installed.
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Our lane is mostly straight. No one can say that the honeysuckle, mostly demolished on the left and the pink Yarrow, buttercups, silverweed, herb robert etc that grew on the right obstructs the view.
I've written to the council &
@PollinatorPlan
for answers
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It's the same in Ireland. Shelves groaning with poison. This madness has to stop.
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Back in about 1995 this was a green field which we left entirely to its own devices.
Now it's living proof that (of course) Mother Nature can rewild herself 💚
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These signs in Coillte's supposed "forests" are extremely unpleasant to see. Have they taught the woodland creatures to read I wonder.
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Wouldn't it be great if every town and village everywhere had a 'best untidy wildlife garden!' competition and an award for the best one. Perhaps the Tidy Town's could actively encourage a bit of untidiness too?!!!
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Just driving along the N62 in Co Offaly and the slashing machine is really devastating the roadside trees. Ripped branches everywhere one tree was broken in half. I couldn't get a photo of the worst of it. And birds still nesting
@OffalyCo
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Can anyone really say that Rose Bay willow herb is any less beautiful than something you could buy in a garden centre?
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I miss Twitter of old. When all the folk I liked & followed the most used to appear 1st in my feed. It 1st went wrong on my laptop not & my phone now it's my phone too. I miss everyone a lot. I have to look up feeds individually now. is it the same for you?
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Cuckoo spits have been around for 100 million years.
The bubbles used to brush onto the legs of dinosaurs.
They do no harm to you or your plants.
Just leave them in their bubbly world & they will turn into froghoppers & leap 100x the length of their bodies 💚
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Having listened to strimmers and mowers all afternoon it's a relief to just hear the birds and enjoy our overgrown patch where no strimmer dares to tread!
What's so wrong with wildflowers anyway? Why do they have to be replaced with non natives?
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All those dangerous wildflowers and all the beautiful knapweed which no doubt could cause cars to crash into each other (I'm joking but I presume that's what folk believe) on both sides of our lane has gone 😔 no doubt the ditch has been sprayed again too 😖
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There's a lot of sadness and awful news on twitter and elsewhere today and every day really.
So here's a few seconds of peace from the wood my mum planted over 30 years ago.
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We drove across Ireland for about two hours today. It's difficult not to despair.
Piles of chopped up trees and hedges in heaps everywhere.
In our lane a little old hawthorn I particularly loved has been cut down. Gone forever.
What about our biodiversity?
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I would just like to thank everyone who liked or commented on my mum's wood. I really had no idea when I posted the picture it would receive such a wonderful reaction and be so inspiring. This is her wood shimmering in the morning sunshine♥️♥️♥️
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Balloons do not float off into infinity.
They end up tangled in branches, fields, verges, shorelines or out at sea where whales & turtles mistake them for jellyfish.
I have often picked up the horrible muddy remains of balloons 😫
Please don't buy them!
Balloon and lantern releases create litter and
#plasticpollution
in landscapes and seas that can harm the environment, wildlife and livestock. Celebrate special occasions and loved ones by planting trees, wildflowers, or bee and butterfly gardens instead!
Pic via
@KeepBritainTidy
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We drove to Knock airport today using mostly deserted new roads. It was exactly five minutes quicker🙄On this new bypass the grass has been excessively cut all the way along. Hours of pointless work & emissions. Why not leave for biodiversity?
@MayoCoCo
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Our driveway is a mass of wildflowers, butterflies, bees, assorted insects & I saw a damselfly today. I couldn't imagine chopping it all down just because
#NoMowMay
is over.
#LetItBloomJune
and thigh high in July😆not sure if that ones real but it's good!
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If France can switch off their street lamps at 10/11pm there's no reason why we can't do it here too? It would be good for wildlife, good for the planet, good for us and think of all the money it would save.
@MayoCoCo
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Recently I lost 700 followers overnight ☹️ and in 19 hours this post has only had 59 viewings. Even if it's the world's dullest post surely it should at least be seen a few more times than that?
I'll keep on posting anyway I'm just wondering out loud!
This robin is so tame that even if you don't have any sunflower seeds he/she will land on you anyway. The other day he perched on my phone while I was taking a photo 😅 but every time it's utterly magical 🥰💚
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Just stop spraying.
Ever more assorted, stronger, frightening, forever chemicals keep being added to sprays to make them more effective & last longer.
Invisably killing forever.
When will we learn that working against nature doesn't work at all.
Please say no to garden poisons such as pesticides and weedkillers, to help keep them out of the food chain. Hedgehogs, for example, can eat over 100 invertebrates every night.
#wildlife
#gardening
#nature
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Most people seem to dislike platains.
This needs to change.
The seed heads are a vital source of food for goldfinches in the winter and they are a host to many different species of moths and butterflies in the summer so please just leave them be 💚
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Has anyone noticed how cold it is beside these isles in Lidl's? Wouldn't it be sensible and save a vast amount of energy by just adding doors?
@lidl_ireland
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My husband and I battled in the mud and the rain to get the pond dug and the liner in. I'm not very keen on the sight of all that plastic but hopefully it will turn into a wonderful home for wildlife.
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Last year this bit in our lane was fab, lots of wildflowers & insects. Then it was strimmed. Then the ditch sprayed. Will be done again no doubt.
This year buttercups have grown back but literally No insects.
Strim, spray, clear away effects us all.
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I found these two on our driveway. Presumably hatched eggs removed from the nest.
Are they thrushes eggs? Blackbird? So beautiful. I hope the chicks survive Storm Kathleen and the parents find enough food.
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So great to see these celandine. Last year someone sprayed this entire verge.
Please oh please let it remain this year 🙏💚
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I keep hearing an ad on the radio for moss killer😖but moss is amazing and beautiful why the need to kill it. It's also home to a host of microscopic invertebrates. Can't we just leave the moss alone.
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I had a thought as I was picking up yet more litter in our lane this morning. Wouldn't it be great if there was a nationwide competition for the most biodiverse lane/country road? Awards for no litter and uncut hedgerows full of native flowers and insects🥰
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A rewilded hanging basket with a wren building a nest in it, is about fifty gazillion times better than lobelia 😁❤️
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I recently posted a photo of the wood my mum planted 30 years ago. I'd like to add that the other half of our plot, which used to be a field, was left to Mother Nature and she did an equally good job...well better, if I'm honest because no human intervened!
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Stop mowing daisies and start eating them! Daisies are high in vit C & closely related to artichokes. The leaves are tasty in salads. Bees love daisies.
Daisies were once known as the gardeners friend because daisy ointment cures backache.
Love daisies 🌼❤️
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Herb Robert is native, beautiful and it's fantastic for bees.
Every garden could have a herb robert patch.
I mean why not?!
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Our pond, which is about 15 months old now, is surrounded by a colourful multitude of singing, buzzing, humming life.
A bit better than a strimmed bit of grass in my opinion!
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Eleven accidents in five days on this new road. But it does save five minutes drive time...five minutes. It might take a bit longer to replace all it has destroyed if ever😔this image makes me despair for so many reasons.
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There's five lots of frogspawn in this tiny pond (old trailer lid) and all before February. Is it wrong of me to move it to other ponds on our plot? It will soon be completely jammed with frogspawn but I don't want to upset the frogs in the pond.
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This robin is so tame that even if you don't have any sunflower seeds he/she will land on you anyway. The other day he perched on my phone while I was taking a photo 😅 but every time it's utterly magical 🥰💚
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Turn the sound up. The birds are here because we have trees.
Yesterday we drove across Ireland and saw many trees and hedgerows cut down, lying there, dead, for no good reason.
I know I keep saying it but what about Ireland's biodiversity?
Can it be saved?
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What would be so wrong with having a wild patch in your garden? Kids love a bit of wildness, it's great for learning & imagination and you would be helping our pollinaters.
Even a small patch makes a big difference.
What is so wrong with that?
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This was our pond last December & today. I thought it would take a year or two to look established. I worried the tadpoles would never survive all the predators that arrived but lots of tiny frogs are hopping about. Nature knows best 💚🥰💚
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This is the same lane I posted about previously where the purple loosestrife & meadow sweet looked so beautiful a week ago and now it looks like the 3rd photo. Photo is wonky due to my distress. I haven't been back to take straight one yet.
Our lane is mostly straight. No one can say that the honeysuckle, mostly demolished on the left and the pink Yarrow, buttercups, silverweed, herb robert etc that grew on the right obstructs the view.
I've written to the council &
@PollinatorPlan
for answers
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@JoyBrooks2023
How awful. Honestly when are people going to realise that this obsession with tidiness is killing our biodiversity.
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I don't understand no mow May. Why leave a host of beautiful wildflowers for a month creating a haven for butterflies bees and a host of insects only to mow it all off at the start of June. Where are they supposed to live then?
#NoMowSummer
Did u know? Not using your mower on your lawn during the summer will attract all sorts of exciting new life to your wild space. Just this week I spotted a Dingy Skipper butterfly for the very first time & I also have orchids…! Go on, ditch those blades…
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Ants can carry 50x their own body weight, can swim, can live up to 30 years, don't have eyes or lungs, hear by vibrations & breath thru holes in their bodies. Ants aerate the soil allowing water & oxygen to reach plant roots.
Humans poison & lie about them.
Did u know?Saw a news headline this week,warning people about swarms of ants with the warmer weather. I get cheesed off with sensationalistic & often wrong or exaggerated stories about insects. They're already suffering a decline in numbers due to us. Give 'em a break media folks
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Please don't mow or strim or spray dandelions.
Can we have a big shout-out for dandelions? These wildflowers will be back in just a few weeks - offering a vital early food source for pollinators including bees & butterflies, and supporting over 50 insect species. RT if you’re going to let them grow 🐝
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Our pond 1st January to 1st of February. It's not finished yet. Hopefully by next year it will be full of frogs. The water should cover that bit on the right & we're going to add sand & plants. Does it matter that some soil fell into it & we can't get it out?
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So few insects this year.
Garden centre flowers, even if good for for pollinators are not always good for larvae.
We expect them to pollinate our food, but make no effort to protect them.
A small wildflower patch in every garden could change everything.
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So many reasons to stop spraying and trust in nature.
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The enormous private hedge in my friend's garden is absolutely covered in butterflies and bees of every kind and the scent is wonderful. Most privets don't get the chance to flower or be this huge. I'm not sure if it's native to Ireland though?
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For Ireland to have a rich variety of life we need to stop cutting everything.
🌿 Biodiversity Week is just around the corner, running from May 17th to 26th!
Explore the rich variety of life in Ireland this May with a host of wonderful events and activities for the whole family.
🔍 Read more here:
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Standing inside the tangle of hawthorn trees and ivy beside our pond is magical and the buzzing of insects is amazing. I'd post a video but twitter won't post videos from my phone unfortunately.
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This is my letter in the current Mayo News. Although I think the culprit is unlikely to see it here. I wonder if it's readable?
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Just reading that soldier beetles are important pollinators.
They do not damage any plants or flowers and they are harmless to people.
And gardeners love them because they munch up aphids 😊💚
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I wrote to the council weeks ago and asked if this patch of grass could be left. Or maybe it was your support for the butterflies & bees, but it looks like this patch is not going to be cut🙏🦋🐝💚
The grass has just been cut and strimmed at Westport Quay. Can I just ask, do you think this is this what tourists want to see? Or would they prefer to see wildflowers butterflies and bees?
@MayoCoCo
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"Cars are being scratched...the sea is the place for them...there may have to be a cull."
We humans empty and pollute the seas & feed seagulls sandwiches and chips. But now they're a nuisance. Solution! Kill the seagulls😬
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I'm in love with plantains.
They are a fab food source for tons of wildlife. And a food and medicinal source for us.
But best of all they are absolutely beautiful. Much better than their cultivated cousins, hostas 💚
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Yet this spring it will be sprayed liberally on pavements, driveways, banks, verges, gardens, playgrounds, parks etc.
Its in us, our soil, water, wildlife & destroys biodiversity.
But what harm if it keeps things neat & tidy?
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I've written & illustrated a kids book to (maybe) help pay towards a plot of land I'm determined to buy.
But! Not being a celeb it might go nowhere.
Just painted main character, Stripes for the cover, to peer up at the title.
Is he any good/appealing?
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It's the same in Ireland.
In fact it's become an acceptable part of gardening.
Spray along the wall, spray the entrance, spray the bank, spray the edges, spray round the trees, the verges etc etc
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Please stop buying pesticides. It's just terrible that we can legally pour pesticides all over our gardens and then the verges & any grass growing in the middle of the road & the ditches that run into the streams etc
Increased pesticide and fertiliser use is driving bird declines across Europe, confirms a major new study:
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Yesterday my husband drove along this new road & saw how they cut the grass. Two men standing at the bottom of the bank operating remote control mowing machines like creepy beetles crawling up the bank higher & higher. Obviously very costly 2the tax payer🤬
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I'm simply beyond delighted to see a real live dragon fly beside our pond today. It's not a great photo because of the breeze.
But so happy to see it, I hope many more appear 😊💚💚
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@IrishRainforest
Yes we sadly know now that this is true. However it could have been much worse if the goldminers had been allowed to have their way. My dad spear headed the campaign to stop goldmining on Croagh Patrick.
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When a strimmer blasts through an overgrown area, please remember it's not just grass and wildflowers being zapped.
Many little creatures with tiny legs (or no legs) and precious pollinators with tiny wings cannot escape those whipping strings.
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Many thanks to
@KittyGillespie
I finally have my very own family of Cinnebar Moth caterpillars. They're now settling in on our ragwort. I'm so happy to see them there!
In fact I've been cooing over them muttering "My Precious"
Husbands getting worried 😂
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Please can anyone who is appalled by the prospect of 1000 trees being felled for a bus route in Cambridge please give Bonkers Busway Cambs a like or a follow. Thank you💚
.
@pondsntrees
The officers like to portray it as just a few NIMBYs in Coton, saying there’s no wider objection to the scheme. So having your support from further a field lends weight to our campaign to
#SaveCotonOrchard
and
#DefendNature
. Thank you 💚
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When you strim and mow you are wiping out our biodiversity.
All insects need buttercups and we need biodiversity.
Turn up the sound if you'd like to hear the birds 😊💚💚
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@HedgehogCabin
I was going to to say poor little Asa, but actually she's blessed because she's being cared for by you ❤️
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My parents & brother's grave used to be unique. A mass of flowers many of them wild until someone 'tidied' it up. Dug up all the plants, took my mum's favourite piece of driftwood, then sprayed it😪leaving it bare and barren like the rest of the c. Tidiness😬
7th of June & a local cemetery is in the process of being massacred...being brutalised from an absolute wildlife haven with all sorts of wild flowers & grasses, into an sterile & grim looking desert...
Not a very good start from
@BCPCouncil
new team.
Why can't you help nature?
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A second freshly laid batch of frogspawn. We have two other small ponds which the frogs ignore! Last year this little pond was solid with frogspawn. I moved bucket loads into the other ponds and we've dug a new huge pond but this is still the favoured pond!
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Why would anyone need to spray along here and what has it achieved?!
Is that really supposed to be an improvement 😱
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If the UK can observe
#NoMowMay
and hopefully longer then surely Ireland can too?
Why can't the endless strimming and spraying just stop? There are definitely more insects flying about here than in Ireland and that's not good.
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This is the walk from our plot to the plot I feverishly want to buy.
I always feel like I'm in a fairy tale.
Climb over the fallen willow, push through the hanging ivy & you will reach the fairy realm. Wish kind greetings & don't do anything to upset them!
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On a remote (once) leafy lane in Co Mayo someone decided that this corner was so dangerous to the few cars that drive along it, a great deal of spraying was needed😖
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SO much better than our graveyard which is frequently strimmed.
Even worse some unknown person dug up all the garden centre flowers & wildflowers on my parents grave & then sprayed it.
I know I've mentioned it before but I'm still upset about it.
Did u know?Churchyards play an important part in maintaining unspoilt & unique wildlife habitats. My parish church in Minchinhampton has bug houses,compost heaps for invertebrates & now a beautiful no-mow look to the graveyard. How gorgeous is this!? Follow
@godsacre
for more....
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Our driveway looks more like a a scene from Narnia this morning!
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@IrishRainforest
Our recent walk in a (supposed) Coillte forest was completely silent. We saw one robin and one blackbird the whole afternoon and of course this appalling sign did not add much joy to the oppressive doom and gloom.
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My clever husband has made a cold frame out of an old French door, rescued from the dump 😊❤️
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If this Venus's girdle was filmed on some distant planet we'd all be gasping in amazement.
But if it was the very last one on earth about to go extinct (hopefully not) we'd (on the whole) barely give it a second thought.
Why are we like that I wonder?
Venus's girdle is a ribbon-shaped comb jelly found in the Mediterranean Sea with a graceful, transparent body, which is a delicate violet in colour. It can reach 1 meter in length.
[📹 Aquatilis]
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And this year there is loads of devil's bit scabious all along both sides of the driveway and it's all self seeded! Rewilding is fabulous and it's free!
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Celtic culture says thistles represent devotion, bravery & strength.
They provide food for a large host of pollinators including butterflies & bees. A home for larvae of a number of flies. The seeds provide healthy food for goldfinches.
Thistles are fab 💜
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@DrTOMontgomery
Imagine how much better our planet would be if all humans simply wanted to live & let live.
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