Bray Tidy Towns

We wanted to give a shout out to Hilary and some of the residents from Wolfe Tone and O’Byrne Road who’ve been doing amazing work over the past while including giving these junction boxes and the area around them some TLC. Makes such a difference - thank you for all the hard work 💚

There really is some fantastic work being done by volunteers all over the town! We are lucky to have you all!

Our final invasive species is one which most of you will know but may be surprised about - Montbretia or Crocosmia X crocosmiiflora.

A horticultural hybrid of 2 South African Crocosmia species, this is considered a non-native invasive species here in Ireland.

Technically it’s a herb and it grows vigorously in early Spring with its grass-like, bright green sword shaped leaves clearly visible by March. Its flowers are bright orange/red trumpet shaped and bloom between July and September. It spreads vegetatively by rhizomes and corms.
Montbretia outcompetes native understories and ground vegetation which is really detrimental to biodiversity.

So what can we do?

Firstly, you can log your sightings on National Biodiversity Data Centre website or using their app.

What else?

You’ll often see packs of corms for sale in supermarkets or garden centres. Don’t buy them! By buying native plants we can use our purchasing power to influence what’s available.

How can we remove it?

Digging, digging and more digging!

We hope you’ve enjoyed our posts this week. A big thanks to Teresa for doing a lot of the research and taking some great photos.

A quick shout out to whoever cleared up this pedestrian access route into Kilbride. Thanks so much, it looks amazing now 💚👏🏻