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The Green Journal: New arrivals at the Green Cube

Over the coming months, Sandra Murphy from our Visitor Engagement Team, will keep you updated on some of the seasonal changes taking place on the grounds of IMMA. In the first Green Journal entry, we will take a look at some recent arrivals on the grounds of IMMA.
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Pictured is a tractor overflowing with Verbena plants ready to be dug in at the Ornamental Gardens. These plants will be providing nectar for our pollinators in early Spring. A New greenhouse is being built for Mary Condon and her gardening team in the nursery at IMMA.

 

1. Tractor overflowing with Verbena plants. 2. New greenhouse being built for Mary Condon and her gardening team in the nursery at IMMA.
1. Tractor overflowing with Verbena plants.
2. New greenhouse.

 

New nest boxes installed on the terrace, courtesy of OPW
New nest boxes installed on the terrace, courtesy of OPW.

 

New nest boxes have been installed on the terrace, courtesy of OPW. We’re really looking forward to new residents setting up house in these and we hope to keep you updated on developments early next Spring! Now is a great time to think about installing nest boxes in your own garden.

 

Butterfly Hotel
Butterfly Hotel.

 

Butterfly hotels! This is our first year to introduce these boxes which provide shelter for our over wintering butterflies on the grounds of IMMA. Again, these boxes can be made for use in your own gardens.

1. Apple Tree. 2. Apple Tree with Ladybird
1. Apple Tree.
2. Apple Tree with Ladybird.

 

Apple trees, planted during the summer, are providing fruits which will benefit the birds at the moment and over the winter months, when food becomes scarce on the ground. The apple blossom in early Spring will provide nectar for our pollinators and produce a delicate, little flower.

Can you spot the ladybird on the left? Yes, it’s a seven-spot ladybird!

1. Male blackbird feeding on the last of the brambleberries. 2. Robin ready for song.
1. Male blackbird feeding on the last of the brambleberries.
2. Robin ready for song.

 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

 That perches in the soul –

 And sings the tune without the words –

 And never stops – at all. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

 

1. Red Hawthorn berries in the hedgerows. 2. Autumn flowering crocus on the terrace.
1. Red Hawthorn berries in the hedgerows.
2. Autumn flowering crocus on the terrace.

 

Pictured are Red Hawthorn berries in the hedgerows. Avoid cutting back these hedgerow plants during September as they provide a vital food source for wildlife when ripe. These can also be used for making jellies and jams, but leave some for the birds!

Cheery Autumn crocus can be seen in September/October underneath the sycamore trees on the terrace at IMMA. Note the beautiful purple veining and yellow saffron, which can be used in cooking.

Compliments as always to Mary Condon and her wonderful gardening team (OPW) at IMMA.

Categories

Further Reading

Commission

Derek Jarman’s Garden by Susan Thomson

Besides such places as The Stonewall Inn, there are few physical places that are part of LGBTQ I+ cultural history - Derek Jarman's Prospect Cottage is one of them. Writer and filmmaker Susan Thomson takes u...

by Susan Thomson / Sat Jun 27th, 2020
Gallery Voices

Famous Five Go Wild at IMMA

While the IMMA site is closed we will continue to explore the biodiversity of the IMMA site in this series of articles by Sandra Murphy from our Visitor Engagement Team. This time Sandra looks at the butterf...

by Sandra Murphy / Sun May 17th, 2020
Gallery Voices

Growing Wild at IMMA

We are delighted to present a new series exploring the biodiversity of the IMMA site. Although the grounds of IMMA are currently closed Sandra Murphy, from our Visitor Engagement Team, would like to share wi...

by Sandra Murphy / Fri Apr 24th, 2020

Up Next

Paula Rego: Empathy is a Moral Force

Sun Oct 25th, 2020
 
Patricia Brennan, Visitor Engagement Team at IMMA and PG student at TCD, continues to engage with the art of renowned realist painter Dame Paula Rego, in an introduction to Rego’s solo exhibition Obedience and Defiance currently at IMMA. This second of a two-part text, pivots on Rego’s engagement with human rights and gender politics from the millennium to the present day. Serendipitous conjunctions with writers and artists - past and present - are observed. ................................................................................................................. Tales of mystery and imagination “The picture begins to tell you what has happened”[I] This second part of an introduction to Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance, curated by Catherine Lampert, looks at some of the great works from the past twenty years of the artist’s oeuvre. There is, notably, a dramatic increase in scale, while the artist continues the interweaving of gender politics with storytelling, further informed by an awareness of the old masters of European painting. Rego has followed her own particular research, often closely connected to the Portuguese folktales which she reinvents and upturns with spectacularly unnerving results: “The Portuguese have a culture that lends itself to the m...