Teach Saileach – Willow Room

On a sunny day last week, I got a sneak preview of the new Teach Saileach or Willow Room at the Country Life Museum in Turlough, Co Mayo.

Sunshine through willow of Teach Saileach

On Sight 2017, was a community arts project, funded by Mayo County Council, in partnership with the National Museum. The Willow Room is one of several willow sculptures created in the grounds of Turlough Park, by the talented Mayo Art Squad. The artists used local willow and traditional basket making techniques.

Willow Room

I was privileged the following day to be the first person to use the Willow room as an outdoor classroom for a group of pupils from a local primary school. We used the space as our classroom before exploring the wood for bugs and other mini-beasts.  The bug hotel is also a new addition to the woodland.

Willow Room

Willow Room

Willow Room

Willow Room

Bug hotel

The room made a wonderful outdoor classroom. Pictured below are just  a couple of the other willow sculptures that can be viewed as part of the Willow trail.

Willow sculpture

Willow sculpture

The artists involved in the project were: Mick Smyth (coordinator), Brendan Timlin, Kevin MacNeely, David McInerney, Saw Tun, Sanita Vecbrale, Paul O’Driscoll and Aidan Crotty

Waves

Downpatrick head

Clew Bay, Co Mayo

Achil, Co Mayo

Lacken strand, Co Mayo

Downpatrick Head, Co Mayo

Living near the West coast of Ireland there are no shortage of Atlantic waves. Now that school holidays are here we may get a chance to get to the beach 😉 Weather permitting!

 

 

 

 

 

Silent Sunday

Willow

Hoverflies

Hoverflies are important pollinators of our crops. There are about 180 species of hoverfly in Ireland. Some like the one below resemble wasps or bees. They don’t have stings, but by pretending to a species that does they can perhaps avoid predation!

Chrysotoxum bicinctum

Various Volucella species all mimicking bumbles

Various Volucella species all mimicking bumbles

Various Volucella species all mimicking bumbles

 

Drone Bumblebees

Male bumblebees, also know as drones as pretty transient. They don’t hang about for long. Once they leave their nest they fly around for a few weeks looking for females to mate with and then, job done, they just die off. It is the new females queens that will hibernate and start a new colony the following spring.

Heath Bumblebee (Bombus jonellus)

Heath Bumblebee (Bombus jonellus)

Heath Bumblebee (Bombus jonellus)

This year, drones of both Early Bumblebees and Heath Bumblebees are appearing earlier than expected here in Ireland. No one is quite sure why yet. It may be due to the strange weather we are experiencing, or it could be that these species are having two generations a year.

Early Bumblebee (Bombus pratorum)

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Many drone bees can be distinguished by the yellow hairs on their faces. The drone will often fly further than the females. So while this is the second year I have seen Heath bumble drones in my garden, I have yet to see a female Heath.

Heath Bumblebee (Bombus jonellus)

And I near forgot to add solstice greetings!!

A week in celebration of pollinators?

In the United States, they are celebrating Pollinator Week (19-25th June). In Britain, they have a Pollinator Awareness Week which runs in July. Isn’t it time we in Ireland did something similar? After all pollinators are in decline worldwide and we can all do our bit to help pollinators in our local areas.

So this week I hope to post a few extra pollinator posts to start an “Irish Pollinator Week” of sorts. I will post the posts here and on a blog I share with a friend, Wild Pollinator Gardens.

And I ask each of you, where ever you are in the world, to think about posting at least one pollinator post or photo over this next week.

Silent Sunday

Here there be fairies….

Creating a garden

Why do we feel compelled to create gardens? My own garden has not so much being created but its journey has been an organic process of gradually fitting in what I wanted from a garden, around what was already there. The very first thing we did was fence off a vegetable plot at the same time the house was being built, as that was a priority for me. We started with fence but planted the beech hedge to provide extra shelter, and that is now well grown.

 

first year of veg plot

Veg plot (2016)

Second was the wildlife pond. It took a bit longer to complete but now it looks like it has always been there.

 

Pond with liner (2007)

Pond 2016

Over the years we have acquired a tunnel, planted more fruit trees, and the wildflower meadow is a work in progress as there is always new plants that can be added. And then one year we had a bit of extra cash which allowed us to build the greenhouse.

 

Polytunnel

Greenhouse

Wildflower meadow and fruit trees

The last two years I have been working on the flower garden.

 

Flower garden

I never get bored in the garden. There is always something to do, something new to create. Though really all I am doing is adding to mother nature and to some degree managing her. Though if you walked into our garden at the moment you’d see that there isn’t a huge amount of management going on, as they wet weather recently has meant no grass cutting and work has meant little weeding, so it’s all a a bit wild. But I do like it like that!

 

Wildflower meadow

Wildflower Meadow

Wildflower ‘street’

Daily Prompt: Create

Silent Sunday

 

Returning to nature

June garden – Vegetables

The last two years I seem to have struggled getting the vegetable plot in order.  Just when I think I am getting things under control the weeds seem to take over!  Currently the autumn strawberries and the blueberries are somewhat overwhelmed with weeds

We’ve had a reasonable crop of purple sprouting broccoli and broccoli (which I started last autumn inside. Mange tout are cropping both inside and outside and broad beans are coming slowly.

Mange tout

Broadbeans

Purple sprouting brocolli

The potatoes are doing well. Cabbages are suffering a bit of slug damage – how the slugs love them!  I surround them with broken egg shells which does help a little. Usually I can get some lettuce going early in the year,  but anything I have set outside this year has just vanished. So I’ll concentrate growing these tender leaves in the polytunnel.  Of course the weeds in the raspberry and blueberry beds are probably havens for slugs, and the recent damp weather doesn’t help either. We did watch a blackbird dismantle a slug the other day, but it did seem to have a problem with the slime.

beetroot seedlings

Cabbage

runner bean

Leeks, onions, parsnip, beetroot, red and white cabbages, courgettes and runner beans are all planted out. I have the latter two planted in the tunnel too in case we don’t get a warm summer. In the greenhouse, I have just recently planted tomatoes and cucumbers.

So if I can just keep on top of the weeds and slugs it will all be fine!