The path
Getting to the heart of the woodland
When the trees were planted in March 1998 they were only 1 metre tall. During the next five years, they grew extremely well and eventually closed the canopy keeping most of the sunlight from reaching the woodland floor in summer.
Not only was the sun kept out of the woodland, but so were the children. The trees had been slowly thinned – removing weaker or over-vigourous trees – but still had grown so well as to prevent easy access.
When the garden was originally designed we hadn’t planned for a path. Now, however, the idea of a meandering woodland path seemed to make sense, so the plans were drawn up.
On paper, the path presented no problems. In reality, though, we had to remove a number of trees, dig the foundations, edge with boards, fill with hardcore and top with dust!!
Once again, we called upon the help of our team of children, teachers, parents and volunteers to do the hard work and create the basis for our eco-trail.
So, in April 2003 and with the sun shining (contrary to most people’s idea of Irish weather!) we began to prepare the foundations armed with spades, shovels, mattocks and a lot of determination.
A good four inch (10cm) foundation was needed to form a long-lasting path that would withstand the feet of hundreds of children and prevent weeds from growing through from below.
Once the foundation was dug, we needed to define the edge of the path more accurately. This was done using wooden boards of the right depth, which were bent and squeezed into position. For the first time, we began to see just how the path might look when it was finally finished.
Then our wonderful weather let us down somewhat and it rained! This was fine after a dry April – the trees needed a drink – but we had 24 tonnes of stone sitting in two separate piles in the carpark! But, undeterred, our team continued the hard work and, in just one day, moved all the stone to the right place and had great fun compacting it with the vibrating plate!
The final job was to make sure everything was level, saw off the tops of the stakes used to secure the edging and to tidy up, go home and rest some weary legs…