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Bird Boxes

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The bird box has always been something I’ve queried. I don’t know why. I just feel/ felt that they would always be better off making their own. Is that fair to say….? Either or, I wanted two in the garden just for the craic of it. You know, to see would they come.

These two bird boxes were made some weeks ago from an old timber wine box and given a lick of whatever colour was nearest/ lying around paint.

Fairly simple to make, they are also another variation of if I got these as a gift would I be impressed ? You better believe it. I’ve seen sites selling these for upwards of €30 each.

My Total Costs. €0.00

If you fancy having a go making them yourself… bear in mind, the bird really doesn’t care if you have not been meticulous in your efforts and from your aesthetic perspective, depending on your skills, a lick of paint will hide everything a lot.

The only things I really need to be careful of is that the box itself isn’t south facing. Logic applies here so you don’t cook the birds. Other than that its keep it about 2-3 metres off the ground and although there are site suggestions of when you should put them up…. I’m not going to pay any attention to that. If the winter guys wanna nest in them, it’s there for the taking. If not they’ll be there for the summer fella’s.

The only note I will make is not to tighten the screws too much so you can flip them over and tip out the previous years unwanted nest.

I could give instructions on how these were made, but the photos say it all pretty much.

More birds to help me eat my raspberries next year 😀

note: Highly recommendthe birdwatch Ireland fact sheet

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The [Un]usual Planter

Here, you have that. You might be able to do something with it….

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That’s quite a regular statement I hear actually. Surprised ? I wasn’t. It’s not the most unusual object I’ve ever been handed. I like the odd challenge and this one was a doddle.

Yesterday I filled the container with some pebble. More to weight it down. It also looks really good. I also had a few hand fulls of pebble in my workshop, so it suited. It also saves on compost and in this case I didn’t have enough 😉

Helen had given me some spider plant babies a while ago that had come on really well…. and I had a spot inside where I felt it would look really good.

Total cost. €0.00

Personally, I’d be over the moon if someone gave me that as a gift.

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the recycled red satellite returns…. ?

peter donegan, the lord mayor of dublin and liam rielly of bagatelle
with the lord mayor and liam rielly

remember the red satellite…. ?

for one weekend only it made it’s first ever public apearance…

Many thanks to Conor McCabe of Jason Clarke Photography for these…

I don’t know where Ken disappeared to…. ? anyhow 😉 above is myself, Cllr Emer Costello, Lord Mayor of dublin and Liam from Bagatelle

Of course it was all for the Urban Garden Smithfield [reviewed here] event that took place over the weekend and part of the garden I was built there

Here’s a brief taster of what also took place there…

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introducing urban strawberry lunch….?

have you ever met a band whos instruments are all ‘recycled’….?

more one might say – found in a skip….?

I was at the smithfield festival where I suppose you could say, apart from the plants – we both collected our ‘bits & pieces’ from similar suppliers.

possibly the most interesting story I have ever heard….

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a recycled show garden…

Remember this post about the smithfield festival….?

Here’s what they said:
In association with the [myplant.ie] rediscovery centre ballymun and waste management, dublin city council, award winning landscape designer peter donegan returns to smithfield aiming to create a small urban garden of sorts filled with nothing but what could have been thrown out and free to take including washing machines, cookers, satellite dishes and basically anything else he can lay his hands on! from landfills and repairs to greens and growing and from throw away useless to a simple bit of that’ll do just fine.

Here’s what happens in one day. In Dublin City Centre. When one has one day to put a show garden together…..

The beauty about this garden is that the plants will be split 3 ways and donated to 2 local community garden groups in smithfield and also in ballymun. Thanks once again to Pat Fitzgerald, all of the other electrical goods will return and again be recycled and the recycled furniture will return to Ballymun to be sold

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