The Modern Landscape

Groundwork

This picture was taken in oak wood of Killarney National Park where people pictured are volunteers invited each year to come and help remove Rhododendron through the Groundwork programme. Rhododendron grows in dense thickets of up to 6m tall. It blocks out all light to the ground layer in a forest and as a result trees and plants cannot grow, preventing the regeneration of the oak woodland. There are over 200 different varieties of Rhododendron in Ireland. Originally from the Caucasus, Rhododendron was brought to Ireland and planted as a cultivar in the large estates and gardens of the countryside. One variety, Rhododendron ponticum found the climatic conditions and poor peaty soil of Irelands oak woodlands an ideal habitat, and is causing a large problem in many areas of the country

With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust and Groundwork

Groundwork
With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust and Groundwork

Groundwork

This picture was taken in oak wood of Killarney National Park where people pictured are volunteers invited each year to come and help remove Rhododendron through the Groundwork programme. Rhododendron grows in dense thickets of up to 6m tall. It blocks out all light to the ground layer in a forest and as a result trees and plants cannot grow, preventing the regeneration of the oak woodland. There are over 200 different varieties of Rhododendron in Ireland. Originally from the Caucasus, Rhododendron was brought to Ireland and planted as a cultivar in the large estates and gardens of the countryside. One variety, Rhododendron ponticum found the climatic conditions and poor peaty soil of Irelands oak woodlands an ideal habitat, and is causing a large problem in many areas of the country

With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust and Groundwork

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Native Woodland

In the past Ireland was a heavily forested country. But over the centuries our forest cover began to dwindle, being used for industry and making room for people and agriculture. Today all of our woodlands have been managed at some stage in the past. For this reason, Irelands native woodlands are known as 'semi-natural'. The trees that are native to Ireland include the kings of the forest, Oak and Ash, the tallest trees that form the canopy layer. These trees act as a support for many other plants such as mosses and lichens, which can be seen on the lower trunks of these trees. Under the canopy trees, holly, hazel and birch grow in what is known as the understory. The shrub layer includes plants such as ferns, heathers, bilberry and lastly the herb layer consist of those plants living closest to the ground, such as the mosses that can be seen in this picture. There are many layers within a forest, each one accommodating certain species at certain times.

With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust

Native Woodland
With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust

Native Woodland

In the past Ireland was a heavily forested country. But over the centuries our forest cover began to dwindle, being used for industry and making room for people and agriculture. Today all of our woodlands have been managed at some stage in the past. For this reason, Irelands native woodlands are known as 'semi-natural'. The trees that are native to Ireland include the kings of the forest, Oak and Ash, the tallest trees that form the canopy layer. These trees act as a support for many other plants such as mosses and lichens, which can be seen on the lower trunks of these trees. Under the canopy trees, holly, hazel and birch grow in what is known as the understory. The shrub layer includes plants such as ferns, heathers, bilberry and lastly the herb layer consist of those plants living closest to the ground, such as the mosses that can be seen in this picture. There are many layers within a forest, each one accommodating certain species at certain times.

With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust

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In today's Ireland, great tracts of landscape have been planted with conifers for commercial forestry, initially on peatland but increasingly on the mineral soils of marginal farmland. There is also a small but increasing share of hardwood trees such as oak, ash and sycamore, which need good land and longer growing cycles. Along with these commercial plantations there is a new ambition to restore and extend the surviving fragments of semi-natural woodland through the State-aided Native Woodland Scheme. These last woods are often grazed bare by livestock or choked by rhododendron, but many still offer shelter to ancient lineages of woodland plants. Just one tall tree in a typical 'Atlantic' oakwood can have more than 50 kinds of lichen growing on it, from mossy base to topmost twigs. In such a wood, beetles, bats, badgers, birds are woven into a teeming web of life that takes even dead and fallen trees into its cycle of renewal.

The moister, shadier native woods are also a special refuge for a group of plants in which Ireland can boast exceptional luxuriance and abundance. The drifting showers and high humidity of the south-west, in particular, promote an exuberant growth of ferns and mosses that has invited comparisons with the mossy mist forests of tropical Central America and Asia.

In the Killarney oakwoods, the atmosphere would often fit J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings much better than Robin Hood. Ferns cover the rocks in soft, feathery shawls. They twine through saturated hummocks of the mosses and even climb into the trees. The botanically famous Killarney fern itself (Trichomanes speciosum) largest and most beautiful of the Irish filmy species, was hunted almost to extinction in Victorian times and now survives in obscure locations in Kerry's spray-filled mountain gorges.

Improved Grassland

Most of Irelands grasslands fall into this category of intensively managed farmland. This means that they have probably been reseeded at some stage in their past, are fertilised or heavily grazed. Improved grasslands are generally dominated by a few species and have a tendency to have a low level of biodiversity. Improved grassland is of little conservation value. However, most Irish grasslands are surrounded by hedgerows. These linear features act a corridors for animals so that they can move from area to area, proving them with food and shelter to survive outside the intensively managed grasslands.

With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust

Improved Grassland
With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust

Improved Grassland

Most of Irelands grasslands fall into this category of intensively managed farmland. This means that they have probably been reseeded at some stage in their past, are fertilised or heavily grazed. Improved grasslands are generally dominated by a few species and have a tendency to have a low level of biodiversity. Improved grassland is of little conservation value. However, most Irish grasslands are surrounded by hedgerows. These linear features act a corridors for animals so that they can move from area to area, proving them with food and shelter to survive outside the intensively managed grasslands.

With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust

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Verge

Grassland verges now act as important wildlife corridors. They are rarely fertilised, mown occasionally, and there is little or no grazing or fertiliser application. Species found in verges vary depending on the environmental factors and soil type of the verge, in addition to management regime. In this image there may be a range of grasses such as Creeping bents (Agrostis spp.) and Meadow grasses (Poa spp.). In addition there may be a range of coarser grasses such as Cock foot (Dactylis glomerata) and False Oat grass (Arrhenatherum elatius). There may be some ivy and brambles present, which act as a habitat for insects and a great source of food and shelter for many birds.

With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust

Verge
With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust

Verge

Grassland verges now act as important wildlife corridors. They are rarely fertilised, mown occasionally, and there is little or no grazing or fertiliser application. Species found in verges vary depending on the environmental factors and soil type of the verge, in addition to management regime. In this image there may be a range of grasses such as Creeping bents (Agrostis spp.) and Meadow grasses (Poa spp.). In addition there may be a range of coarser grasses such as Cock foot (Dactylis glomerata) and False Oat grass (Arrhenatherum elatius). There may be some ivy and brambles present, which act as a habitat for insects and a great source of food and shelter for many birds.

With kind permission of the Irish Wildlife Trust

Enlarge image

The rich biodiversity - the number and range of species - in broadleaf forest offers dramatic contrast to the farmland that has generally take its place. The last 300 years have seen the return to an area of grassland unmatched on the island since the end of the Ice Age, but one in which native plant species have been allowed less and less room.

Some 250 species - about one-quarter of the Irish flora - made up the weave of the native grasslands, most of them localised to some degree in the patchwork of plant communities. But drainage, reseeding and fertilizing have been homogenising 'improved' farm grassland for half a century, so that a field in Wexford or Limerick or Sligo is all the same green.

On old grassland surviving on shallow soil in the Burren, lime-rich, untouched by fertiliser and waving with oat grasses, there may be as many as 45 species of plant in a few square metres; in the intensive swards of the lowlands, dominated by rye-grass and clover, one might search a field to find 10.

Oat grasses replaced the primal woodland all over Europe, especially on the soils - neither too wet nor too dry - that farmers were to prefer. In Ireland, these survive in rough roadside verges and ancient graveyards, and in rare stretches of semi-natural grassland - such as the Shannon callows - where frequent flooding has kept the plough at bay.