Kilcullen 700 trees now a strong tiny forest

Less than four and a half years after being planted as part of the Kilcullen 700 celebrations, the 700 trees down by the Mill Stream have turned into a real tiny forest, writes Brian Byrne.

The trees were supplied by the Tree Council of Ireland and families old and new to Kilcullen came out to help put the saplings in the ground, under the watchful eye of Éanna Ní Lamhna.

A book listing the names of families associated with the planting was later placed in the Heritage Centre.

Although the Tiny Forest idea hadn’t yet taken root in Ireland at the time, it looks like Kilcullen was inadvertently in the vanguard of an ecological movement that began in Japan in the 1970s, and is now recognised as very beneficial to local biodiversity. The first official Tiny Forest, where up to 900 trees of a variety of types are planted in a small space, was planted in Ireland in March of this year, in Mulhuddart in Dublin.

Because they are planted so closely together, the trees grow vertically towards the sunlight rather than outwards, providing a dense ecological space that becomes home to a wide variety of wild-life and other biodiversity.

Photographs use Policy — Privacy Policy