Going Back To The Orchard

At the centre of it all…

he Delgany Tidy Towns have been busy bees again this week, as they set about planting more mini-orchards to help our pollinating pals have a particular place to go.

Part of a nationwide project going under the witty title of DC For Bees, initially the cunning plan was to plant over 1,000 such orchards all across Ireland.

And that figure has now grown to 2,000 orchards, the overall goal being ‘to encourage biodiversity, protect and feed pollinators, provide a means for organisation and community purpose-based activity which will foster an appreciation of, and awareness for, protecting and encouraging biodiverse habitats in our local areas’.

And given that orchards are classified as Priority Habitats, having 2,000+ popping up around the country over the coming years and decades makes a lot of sense.

Having planted 5-tree mini-orchards at both The Glebe and down at Cherry Orchard in Killincarrig in February 2022, the Delgany Tidy Towns gang are calling on all local residential estates and associations to get in contact with them with any potential mixed fruit orchard sites in the area.

If you live in Delgany and your residential estate would like to get involved, you should contact the tidy towns gang on email here with the following information:

⦿ Number of trees your residential estate can accommodate

⦿ Pictures of the potential location and area 

⦿ Name and contact details of residential estate representative.

The hope would be to have those suggestions in by Thursday, November 16th.

You can find out more about Orchards In The Community right about here, DCs For Bees here, and about Delgany Tidy Towns over here.

Cover pic: The Cherry Orchard vintage postcard (colourised by GG).