Sustainability

Working with sustainable systems:

We believe in the power of nature and do our very best to protect, celebrate and work positively with it. These are just a few of the ways we have integrated sustainable systems within our business.

Plants:

We promote native trees, plants for wildlife and pollinators and heritage varieties.

Our Building:

Our distinctive Future Forests main building is proudly designed and constructed by Christy Collard (Maria’s talented brother) from local wood and has been an innovative way of testing natural building methods and materials. Come visit and see for yourself! See more of Christy’s work here www.christycollard.com

Responsible sourcing:

Buying in Ireland to support local growers is always our first choice. We import when we can’t source from within Ireland. We do this to help sustain the Irish nursery sector and to play our part in protecting indigenous plant health.

Water:

We harvest rainwater and have a series of gravity-fed reservoirs on our grounds which irrigate our gardens and nursery.

Peat Free:

From October 2017 we have pledged to only sell Peat Free compost and use a Peat Free Potting mix for our own potting.

Composting toilets:

Composting toilets use the natural processes of decomposition and evaporation to recycle human waste. It seemed an obvious choice to build compost toilets in the nursery and after lots of research we built ours around 5 years ago and they have not been emptied yet!

Nursery Care:

All our nursery  beds are hand weeded without the use of systemic weed killers.

Emphasis on

All our plants within our care and looking after using Organic principles…..

Packaging:

We use recycled cardboard and local straw. We aim to be as efficient as possible with all the materials we use.

Local needs:

We are responding to the Irish context, promoting native plants and advising on sustainable planting solutions based on the needs of specific geography, climate and location.