Today Paddy and I went for a walk in Portglenone forest.
..there is more to the forest than just trees - over 150 different species of shrub, flower, fern, moss as well as tree thrive in Portglenone Forest. One of our best known flowers is the bluebell – and we have around 12 hectares of bluebells at Portglenone: at 30 bluebells per metre², that comes to over 31/2 million bluebells, probably the greatest spread in N Ireland!
And my mum said she wasn't going to see any decent amount of bluebells this year...
ReplyDeleteMaybe she's right. They're late this year and we have had a very dry spring. I've seen them denser than that in Portglenone.
ReplyDeleteAhhhhh ... the bluebells are lovely. Aparently our indigenous bluebells are under threat from a Spanish invader that people favour for their gardens. The smell in a bluebell wood does your heart good.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about them being late though. The further north the later they get. When I lived up in North Antrim they didn't appear until late May or early June most years. I thought that global warming had shortened the summer months until I moved back to County Down. Never been in Portglenone forest although I've passed it many's a time.
I was at Portglenone today, I got some good pictures which I will put up on flickr tomorrow. The smell of the bluebells was amazing, and the smell of the wild garlic was weird. I got stung by a nettle but luckily there were dock leaves near! :D
ReplyDeletePortglenone bluebell photos
ReplyDeleteAwesome photos Adam. Hope your nettle sting is better. When Bert gets stung it is still sore a day later.
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