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Lets get making our streets and estates into urban orchard for everyone to have free fresh food!

The centrepiece of the spiral

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 This is the Irish yew tree at the centre of The Phantom Planters Oak Spiral. These trees live for thousands of years with some saying they are immortal.  This Irish yew is a bit different than any I have ever seen. The colour and leaf structure is very unusual. It even feels thicker and denser than others I have seen. You have golden Irish yews and then you have your normal green Irish yews, but this one is sightly different than both of them. Its more wild and rugged looking which I love.  Coming into summer I was starting to think it was dying as it was slow to show any new growth compared to other Irish yews. Then when it did put out new shoots they grew very slow and so different than the way other Irish yews grow. I have both golden and normal Irish yews around my cabin so I have been observing them closely and this one in the centre of our spiral is just a unique one off type of Irish yew that I think is just meant to be centrepiece of The Phantom Planters Oak Spir...
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Best free mulch for trees

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 After a storm get down to the beach and grab some washed up seaweed. Just mulch directly round your trees not too close to the trunk.  So many say the salt will kill your trees and others say the minerals are good for them.  I never wash mine and all the trees I added  it too over the years are thriving.  Just dont go ripping live seaweed off rocks. Always get the stuff thats washed up.
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Still this saddens me

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 Here is a drone pic of me out cutting round the 88 heritage Irish apple trees in the summer.  Really saddens me that all these trees have now been massacred.  Still I have not found out who chopped these trees.  Was just odd though that the wild flower meadow next to this was cut at the same time as these trees.  And the other 200 trees that got slaughtered the grass was cut around the edges round about the same time as the massacre.  The grass hadn't been cut in this area for many years.  I don't think any conversation or tree planting group would ever come forward to say they did this. I have an idea though who it is and why you have taken a disliking to me.  So much work, time and effort went into all this and never mind the cost of it all also.  Please if you can guys support the phantom planters movement by donating on the link below. https://paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=FAJZHB3TBXMSL If you don't have paypal you can donate into ...
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Look after the trees as they're looking after you

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 "Your trees are going to die as they need watered during drought and heatwaves"!  A phrase so many used to always say to me.  My answer was - "I water mine". Simple as.  Every week I never missed carrying my drums of water all over the country to water newly phantom planted trees.  I would take a heatwave everyday of the year so I could be out in the sun watering my phantom planted trees, keeping the hood looking like a nature loving Buddhahood.  The first tree I ever phantom planted a guy that worked for the National Trust stopped with the oak leaf uniform on speaking very constipated like he definitely knew what he was talking about when it came to trees.  He said what a waste of time, that tree will die, its not the right time of year to be planting he said.  This was the first tree I ever planted and he was definitely one of Maras little demons as they call in Buddhism sent right at that time to try and put me off doing something that would o...
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Great day yesterday

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 Great day yesterday tidying up the Lisnabreeny Community Orchard. Thank you to all the volunteers who came and helped out. We got so much done and the place is looking amazing.  Always feels very uplifting when members of the community meet up like this to do work for the greater good. More of this is needed in society. There is around 600 heritage Irish apple trees here which in the years ahead will produce about 1 million apple a year for the community.  I brought my good friend up yesterday to show him the place for the first time and as he was looking around he said to me -  You know this is a job for life looking after here -  I said I know it is.  He said you'll need to start making money from this in some way then.  How much have money have you invested in this place so far he was asking. I said mate do you know how much money I've spent on self gratification over the years. I would have spent easily hundreds of pounds a week on drink, drugs an...
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Spindle seeds

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 On a plus side after all thats happened with the apple trees this is my first ever phantom planted spindle seeds. Looks very like a flower.  They are actually little capsules of seeds. Waited years to see these! Its not just fruit trees I phantom plant. Ive phantom planted thousands of other types of native trees.  No one ever has problem with these types of trees phantom planted.  So if your looking trees to phantom plant that wont be at risk of getting cut down plant natives like spindle or other similar trees that the woodland trust plant.  So much discrimination out there against trees that the community can actually eat from.  Its all wrong. We need wild fruit forest everywhere. They are massive part of whats missing within our ecology.  I have never seen Jay bird before in my life until one landed on my phantom planted apple trees and just started pecking into an apple. An Owl was also spotted in our orchard too.  For Trees and Ulster. My o...
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Keep on planting and chanting

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 These are some pics from over the summer of me out cutting the grass around the 88 apple trees that have now been massacred. And one pic from yesterday of the poor trees left to die.  Every apple tree here was a rare heritage Irish variety that I selected myself from old orchards around the country. I grafted these onto mm106 rootstock and nurtured them for nearly a year in our polytunnel before phantom planting out.  I never missed going to back to care for these trees, making sure they were always mulched and the grass cut nice and neat around them. I didn't want them to be a hassle to anyone.   I picked this spot as it was a massive open green space in the estate and the woodland trust had been planting trees in island formations for the past few years in the same field.  I thought sure why not have an island of Irish apple trees for the community and nature to enjoy. Fruit trees are the one thing thats missing from our landscape for nature. The RHS pub...
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