Planting Acorns In Limerick

national | environment | news report Monday November 01, 2004 20:38 by an fear siuil

….It's so easy....i think!

Bank Holiday Monday last myself and a friend travelled east 10 miles out of Limerick city to Glenstal Abbey. She is a friend of one of the brothers and a few days earlier over a cup of tea, he invited us out to give him a hand plant a few oak trees in some land he had cleared of conifers.

Ashamed and amazed to admit it, but even though I grew up on a farm in South Limerick I had never planted a tree in my life. Somehow planting oaks/acorns was enshrouded in mystery for me but here's one way of doing it….

1) Collect newly fallen acorns … don't wait too long or they'll go bad.
2) Get a stick.
3) Find a patch of ground where they can grow in peace.
4) Make hole 2 inches in ground with stick.
5) Push in acorn(lying flat).
6) Cover hole.
7) Leave for 300 years.

Plant as many as you can: one for the sparrow, one for the crow, one to die and one to grow. More experienced gardeners will tell you to store the acorns in sand over winter and plant in spring so they'll escape the frosts. Others will say to put them in trays and give them a head start in a shed or kitchen…

We arrived out to Glenstal at 10 o'clock on a fresh Monday morning. We got some buckets and collected a few thousand acorns, all from one big oak not 100 metres from the Abbey. After some fresh cheese and warm bread, we headed up little oak glen behind the church. Teeming with all sorts of greenery, we expected to find many more acorns in this little oasis of native oak woodland. We found a mere handful, which made me think how afraid of humans the creatures of the wood must be to have left 1000s and 1000s of acorns underneath the big oak by the road way, while not leaving a handful behind from the 100s of trees in the oak glen.

Next we headed for the area cleared of conifers and began planting our precious store in the manner given above. Hole in ground-acorn-close hole. Hole in ground-acorn-close hole. Hole in ground-acorn-close hole. For the next few hours.

Planting trees is an act of hope and faith in the future. I think about today and tomorrow while I push this little great oak seed into the ground. The life they will hopefully support. The birds, the fruit, the animals. The shelter, the beauty of the wood that will hopefully grow here. I hope to return again and again to watch them grow and outlive me.
Make a few hours to collect some acorns. Find some where to push them in the ground. It is good.