New roads and Landscaping

Amtmann

I'll just repeat what I said on the other thread:

The one thing about hay meadows is that they're supposed to be cut. Who will cut it on the M7? What this essentially means is that we will have another treeless gash through the countryside. And though it will look nice from April to June each year, after that it will resemble a savanah and look totally out of place - unless it's tended to, which it won't be.

Incidentally, wildflower meadows were supposed to have been planted on some parts of the M8 and M9 already. And also, a suppressed memory has suddenly surfaced: I've just recalled that about two years ago I went for a drink with the landscape architect who was designing the planting scheme for the M9. She was very outlandish, and I ended up making excuses and leaving early. I should've asked her about the plants she was going to put in, and whether she was under any instructions to limit the amount of trees. But I'd only a fleeting interest in roads back then....

Mr Clonfadda

Surely the whole point of a natural meadow is that you don't cut it. Otherwise you would kill off the wild flowers

Zoney

Nigel Sage: I presume cutting meadow is to make up for it not being grazed - and it seems rather preposterous to suggest that cutting a meadow would kill the flowers (obviously regular short cutting would only allow certain flowers to flourish, but it's presumably a once a year type thing - *if* they cut it at all).

Amtmann

Nigel Sage wrote: »

Surely the whole point of a natural meadow is that you don't cut it. Otherwise you would kill off the wild flowers

There's actually no such thing as a natural meadow (unless we count prairie or steppe, which I'll come to below). Meadows arise from non-intensive agricultural practices. The grass grows from spring to early summer, and then it is cut down to the scut, only to grow again and be grazed for a few months. The cycle is then repeated. The closest natural equivalent would be prairie or steppe, but even these are generally grazed by wildlife - by millions upon millions of bison in the case of pre-18th-century America, for instance.

Mr Clonfadda

Hey Zoney I did mean regular cutting.

Furet. I bow to your superior Knowledge.

Irish roads never seem to be properly attended to at any category though.

Amtmann

Nigel Sage wrote: »

Irish roads never seem to be properly attended to at any category though.

This is the problem. But I suppose my point essentially is that if they were planted with appropriate trees and shrubs from Day One, very little if any maintenance would be required. On the one extreme you have the M8 Glanmire Bypass section, where indeed plants are located too close to the carriageway. At the other end of the spectrum then you have the likes of the Cashel to Mitchelstown or Watergrasshill Bypass sections on the M8, and in the future the Castletown to Nenagh M7 section, or several M11 sections.
Eventually I have no doubt that through the process of succession the embankments will develop a rich covering of flora; but this will take many, many years, decades probably.

Carawaystick

Heading west on the M6 at various places and times over the weekend, I noticed between I'd say Kilbeggan and Athlone that the shrubs were flowering- some white flowers and some catkins from bushes about 1m high. I'd say they were Blackthorn and either a spindly hazel or willow- was going too fast to really see - I'd have had to stop to be sure, which isn't allowed...

And on the PPP section of the M6 there are long sections coned off to allow landscaping continue (Also on the new N65 section) but less sign of plant life here- it looks like a few sticks stuck in the ground.

I wonder if the PPP contract has something about the state of the planting?


One last point, some( two I'd say) of the overbridges have a very steep bank covered in hessian from the M6 up to the bridge abutment - It's 75 or 80 degrees, compared to the usual 50 degrees or so. There's no sign of life on the hessian to bind the face of the bank- It seems strange.

KevR

Athlone-Kilbeggan had feck all plants or shrubs last summer. As far as I can remember, it had a lot of long wild grass and weeds.

Wild Bill

"organic hayseeds" ! This is the greatest load of green baloney I've heard since....yesterday. What is an inorganic hayseed?!

As someone has pointed out, outside of semi-arid regions of the globe (and that doesn't include anywhere between Castletown and Nenagh) nothing resembling meadow is natural - or "organic" (if we want to abuse the English language).

Apart from some raised bog, where the issue is debatable, the "natural" vegetation of Ireland if woodland. Even the Burren and the moorlands on the mountain tops would not remain bare without the constant effort of man and his woolly animals.

So if we want to restore a small sample of "nature" to the countryside the linear forests along the motorways is the way to go.

Also the "natural meadows" full of wildflowers can't be maintained just by cutting the grass. It needs grazing animals or mono-cultures take over after a few years. Check any motorway median.

Grazing animals would be kinda cute on our motorways, though a dead cow or sheep might be more problematic than the odd badger.

Wild Bill

Also - some of you folk carping about the state of motorway landscaping need to bear in mind that areas planted with trees will take up to 10 years to look better than scrappy. For the first 5 years you'll hardly see the trees - many stretches folk here complain about are actually well planted.

Don't expect to see much on the M6 for a few years.

I may do a survey just for Boards.ie this Summer!

Amtmann

Well the Fermoy Bypass (six years old) will look great in another couple of years. The saplings are really taking off now.

Wild Bill

Yep - after the long cold winter I noticed yesterday that with the buds finally bursting the trees are becoming noticable on stretches of the M4 tolled section.

Zoney

Furet wrote: »

Well the Fermoy Bypass (six years old) will look great in another couple of years. The saplings are really taking off now.

At ten years, the M20 is looking great this year too now that the trees have grown a bit (the cutting at J3 for Raheen for example).

However, I think I mentioned before, this does unfortunately mean we need to retrofit crash barriers to the verges of a lot of our motorways. It isn't safe to have unprotected tree trunks at the side of a motorway. This seems to be a serious oversight as regards such planting.

mysterious

Since many national routes are bypassed, isn't it now a good opportunity for people who live near old n roads to plant trees along it. Like lots of Native Irish trees. I got a 2 bundles of 10, there for 25 euro. Which is 20 trees last week and planted them on the roadside.

Amtmann

Just on landscaping, the entire area in the foreground of this photo, and the motorway embankment you can see in the centre-left, was supposed to have been carpeted with hazel, willow and mountain ash when the road was planted in 2007 (this part of the M8 C-M scheme opened in October 2007):



The entire embankment on the left was also supposed to have been heavily planted, nothing survived but thistles and dock:



After much pestering, South Tipp Co Co had a team of landscapers out there two weeks ago, and they strimmed the whole thing. I have received a commitment that intensive re-planting will take place over the coming winter. We'll see.

Wild Bill

Furet wrote: »

After much pestering, South Tipp Co Co had a team of landscapers out there two weeks ago, and they strimmed the whole thing. I have received a commitment that intensive re-planting will take place over the coming winter. We'll see.

Good Lord Furet! They strimmed everything? And there was a fine looking Mountain Ash and some nice hazels in the foreground.

What have you done?! :eek:

Amtmann

Wild Bill wrote: »

Good Lord Furet! They strimmed everything?

I sought only to have one 500m stretch of creeping thistle and dock between junction 9 and 10 strimmed or sprayed in preparation for replanting with rowan, hazel, hawthorn and willow. Instead they strimmed over 13 km of the southbound carriageway (and only the southbound carriageway), front, back and sides. It took four men five days. They butchered the noxious weeds, but judiciously left all other flora.

And there was a fine looking Mountain Ash and some nice hazels in the foreground.

There are exactly 15 shrubs and trees in an area that could take (and is supposed to take) several hundred. Those 15 shrubs and trees will have several hundred newly planted comrades beside them by spring 2011.

What have you done?! :eek:

I have sought to ensure that the planting plan outlined in the M8 C-M scheme's EIS will be implemented. I discovered that the landscaper is obliged to maintain the planting on the scheme and replace any dead trees and shrubs until March 2012. That is now what they will do (or so I am promised).

Wild Bill

Furet wrote: »

I discovered that the landscaper is obliged to maintain the planting on the scheme and replace any dead trees and shrubs until March 2012. That is now what they will do (or so I am promised).

Serious financial hit for the landscape contractor (do you know who it is btw?) - the entire thing will have to be re-established with a carpet of grass and other vegetation to contend with.

Not that I'd reckon hazel and rowan are trees by any reasonable definition! More like shrubs - they will never shade out the competing vegetation - this will have to be maintained forever! :cool:

Amtmann

Wild Bill wrote: »

Serious financial hit for the landscape contractor (do you know who it is btw?) - the entire thing will have to be re-established with a carpet of grass and other vegetation to contend with.

I don't think they will do half that. I fully expect them to just heel some saplings in and spray around the base, a half-arsed job. I don't know who the contractor is for the C-M scheme, but I know that Grangemore got the M-F scheme (and don't seem to be doing a very good job). Whoever did the Cashel-Cullahill scheme deserves a medal. A fantastic job was done.

Not that I'd reckon hazel and rowan are trees by any reasonable definition! More like shrubs - they will never shade out the competing vegetation - this will have to be maintained forever! :cool:

Unfortunately you are right; but if planted thickly enough with less of the rowan and more hazel and hawthorn, ten years might leave us with a thick enough covering. It was gratifying to see the verges tidied anyway. The entire area around my house was destroyed with ragwort, dock and thistle after the M8 opened, particularly on a local road at an overbridge realignment. I am sorting that out myself actually - a personal project of mine to while away a few hours each week in between job-seeking.

Sponge Bob

Native trees @ around 4 years old and not planted in a drought like H1 2010 can compete with grasses. If they are younger than that and hit a drought ....no.

Excepting whitethorn and blackthorn that take an age to establish of course.

Amtmann

Also a fan of birch. There are quite a few of those to be planted at that location too, with holly. Nativism seems to be the mantra.

There are some magnificent weed-free wildflower sections on the M8 south of Urlingford. A similar planting plan has been proposed for the M7 Castletown-Nenagh scheme apparently.

Amtmann

Cross-posting from the M20 thread. More evidence, if such were needed, that the NRA's spartan landscaping policy is having a detrimental affect on wildlife:

M20 to Become Ireland's First "Owl-Friendly" Motorway

The National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS) has discovered that large numbers of the protected species are being killed on elevated sections of Irish motorways which have grass embankments.

Dr Jer Good of the NPWS told a Bord Pleanála oral hearing into the planned 80km Cork-Limerick motorway yesterday that lightly-built owls swooping to catch field mice and moles on the grass banks were often casualties of the suction caused in the wake of passing lorries.

He said a recent study carried out on the M8 in north Tipperary showed a very high mortality rate among barn owls. On one day last April, six barn owls were found dead on a small section of the highway.

Dr Good said studies in the Netherlands showed barn owl populations had been virtually wiped out along motorways with grass embankments. A survey in England also found 72% of barn owls flying near major roads were likely to be killed.

Under an EU Directive, he said there was an obligation on this country to protect such vulnerable birds of prey.

NRA representatives said they would take on board Dr Good’s recommendations to plant trees, gorse and scrub along certain sections of the Cork-Limerick motorway which would provide cover for likely owls’ prey.

The landscaping measures would discourage the birds from hunting in these areas, therefore, making it less likely they would be killed by passing lorries.

Prior to the motorway’s construction, a survey of all barn owls nesting within 5km of the road will be carried out.

The survey will aim to identify their hunting areas and ensure "hot spots" along the motorway are provided with plant cover.

A year after the motorway opens, a follow-up survey will also be conducted to identify the number of owls killed on the road. The survey will be carried out every 15 days over a 12-month period and will, if necessary, recommend further planting in vulnerable areas.

Dr Good said he hoped such practices would be introduced on all other motorways throughout the country.

The likely costs of the wild bird project were not divulged and not discussed at the hearing.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, July 16, 2010


Read more: http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland...#ixzz0zh0AApVI

tharlear

The entire area around my house was destroyed with ragwort, dock and thistle after the M8 opened, particularly on a local road at an overbridge realignment. I am sorting that out myself actually - a personal project of mine to while away a few hours each week in between job-seeking

I thought it was illegal to allow ragwort, dock or thistle to grow on your land?
http://www.aughty.org/pdf/control_ragwort_buac.pdf

Amtmann

tharlear wrote: »

I thought it was illegal to allow ragwort, dock or thistle to grow on your land?
http://www.aughty.org/pdf/control_ragwort_buac.pdf

It is. The ragwort is on NRA/state land. They'll hardly prosecute themselves.

Zoney

Wow, quite a contrast in those photos with for example the planting on the M20, which now after 10 years is starting to be very established! Of course the next problem will be the need for full barriers along the verges of motorways with trees along the cuttings or flats (embankments usually already have barrier).

Wild Bill

Trees are what you need - furze bushes are not a good idea; they are not a climax species and are redolent of abandoned pasture. And all that smoke when they are eventually set on fire. Hazardous. :mad:

Amtmann

tech2 wrote: »

Nenagh to Castletown M7 planned landscaping




Link

Walking this scheme today I noticed large bundles of hay and straw piled up and spread along the embankments. It looks like this is part of the wildflower seeding project:

Amtmann

Must say, the M8 Cashel to Mitchelstown scheme has been taken over by a form of dense, shrubby willow between Cahir and Mitchelstown that has grown incredibly fast. Looks great.

Any idea what species it might be based on the above description, Wild Bill? It's reasonably low-growing and has turned into a thicket. No trunks as such...just very shrubby.

Will try to snap a pic tomorrow when I head down to Cork.

Wild Bill

Tremelo wrote: »

The M8 Cashel to Mitchelstown scheme has been taken over by a form of dense, shrubby willow...

Any idea what species it might be based on the above description, Wild Bill?

I'm tempted to say "willow"!:rolleyes:

Dunno though. Am looking forward to the photo.

Amtmann

Wild Bill wrote: »

I'm tempted to say "willow"!:rolleyes:

Dunno though. Am looking forward to the photo.

Should have written 'variety'