“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now”

Chinese Proverb

Sisters, staff from Mary Bellew House and the Dominican Archives, and members of the Cosmic Garden Group gathered in Cabra this morning for a tree planting ceremony to mark the closing of the Season of Creation, which began on 1st Sept and ends on 4th October, the feast day of St Francis. The theme of the Season this year is to hope and act with creation.

Trees have an important place in Irish history and folklore. In the Ogham alphabet, used mainly between the 5th and 7th centuries AD, trees figured largely in the naming of the letters. Originally eight letters were named after trees – birch, alder, willow, oak, hazel, pine, ash and yew. Their selection gives us clues as to the importance of these trees in early Irish society.

We plant trees to remember, to commemorate. We plant them for beauty, for biodiversity, for our own health. The average fully grown tree produces the oxygen needed for two people to breathe all year long. Just looking at a tree from a window has been proven to lower blood pressure levels, and according to research from the Natural History Museum, birdsong has been shown to reduce stress too. More than 20% of the world’s birds live in cities and they feed off the insects, sap, and any fruit or nuts that trees provide. Flowering trees are also an important source of nectar for pollinators such as bees, butterflies, and other insects.

We concluded the tree planting ceremony with a poem, Trees, by Joyce Kilmer

                        Trees

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.