Hedgerow’s harvest home

ONE of the unsung annual highlights of the Irish countryside is our hedgerows.

During the coming few months, these unobtrusive ecosystems will literally come to life. We can often fail to notice what’s under our very nose, but take a drive through rural Ireland with a foreign tourist and you’ll hear their amazement at the amount of different plants growing wild on the roadside.

And if you stop for a moment and look you’ll see that our ditches are chock full of plant life. Bluebells, cowslips and primroses in the spring and early summer, through to the recently finished foxgloves and honeysuckle, along with blackthorn, whitethorn, holly, hazel, spindle, privet and wild roses, they’re just some of the flora you will find in an Irish hedgerow.