Photos by Pat Shortall
Take the time for a ramble down to the magnificent World War One memorial, Kilkenny’s County memorial to the over 800 Men and Women who died in the Great War 1914-18.
As well as seeing the massive loss of recorded on the memorial panels, look up to the grass bank area behind the memorial.
There you will see to your delight an array of colours, purples, whites, yellows flowering, pollinator-friendly Crocus bulbs for you to enjoy.
These vibrant Crocus bulbs will blow away any winter cobwebs still lurking around.
You will have noticed a notable stretch in the evenings and some say that February 1 is the first day of Spring.
Despite any heavy showers of rain or strong winds still around, you will feel that the long nights of Winter are being overtaken by the beauty of Spring.
Late last year as the evenings were getting shorter, a dedicated team of like minded individuals set about planting 20,000 pollinator friendly Crocus bulbs under the trees in the grass bank along the memorial and some surrounding areas.
Members of the Kilkenny Great War Memorial committee, Kilkenny County Council, Michael Street Residents, Keep Kilkenny Beautiful committee and its volunteers brought their buckets, spades and set about to do something very magical and beautiful in our fair city.
The fun, banter and comradery was very enjoyable and some individual citizens joined in the mammoth task to sow the 20,000 bulbs.
These flowering crocus bulbs are pollinator-friendly and will be a huge addition to the available food source for the early Bees and pollinator insects along the banks of the river Nore flowing through this beautiful city of ours.
The Crocus bulbs are among the most hardy and consistent of Spring bulbs.
So the visitors and local people as well as the biodiversity are offered this annual colourful assault from this year and they will continue flowering each year into the future around the Kilkenny Great War Memorial and without doubt the bulbs will become a visitor attraction in their own right when the word gets around!.
Crocus bulbs originated from Central, Southern Europe and Asia and they have been heralding the Spring throughout Ireland since the days of the Roman Empire, they provide a great show of colour and have earned a special place in the hearts of Irish gardeners.
As they have been planted en masse, the area has been transformed from an ordinary grass bank into a carpet of sumptuous purple, white and yellow, woven into a tapestry of jewel-like flowers that bring much needed colour back into this wintery green spaces in the environs of the city, dappled by the shade of the canopy of trees.
The bulbs will multiply over the years and will form a carpet.
The grass bank was mown in mid December last and this helped to lower the grass cover.
After flowering we will have to live with some shaggy turf in early Spring.
Grass cutting will resume in end of May each year. This will allow the Crocus leaves time to photosynthesis and build up enough energy for next year’s display.
Hopefully, many other green spaces around the city will be planted with other Spring bulbs in the future so as to further enhance the aesthetic value of Kilkenny city.
Financial support given to enable this planting to be done around the Kilkenny Great War Memorial came from Keep Kilkenny Beautiful, an Amenity Grant from Kilkenny County Council and from donations from the Michael Street residents.
The enclosed poem- ‘The First crocus’ by Lisa Varchol Prrin seems apt.
The First Crocus
By Lisa Varchol Perron
I like to think it matter
That moment when the crocus blooms
As brittle winter shatters
purple petals spread like plumes
That moment when the crocus blooms
beneath a slab of slate gray sky
purple petals spread like plumes
I lift my hopes from where they lie
Beneath a slab of slat gray sky
The ground ‘s still stiff with cold, and yet
I lift my hopes from where they lie
The crocus whispers “Don’t forget”
“The ground’s still stiff with cold , and yet
It’s time, at last, to welcome Spring.”
The crocus whispers, Don’t forget.
An instant changes everything.
It’s time at last to welcome Aspring
As brittle winter shatters.
An instant changes everyting,
I like to think-it matters
