Natures palace.

 Was down walking around the Belvoir memorial orchard aka The Phantom Planters HQ last night and cant believe the size everything is getting.

What used to be an unused overgrown patch of land that lay like this for as long as I can remember is now a thriving orchard feeding the community and nature!

Last night I seen a Jay sitting on a branch getting stuck into an apple. The only place I've ever seen jays before is at the orchard eating our apples.

For the past few years I have seen them come to our orchard and I've never noticed them anywhere else before here in Belfast considering I'm always out on nature walks too, it really does surprise me that I've never spotted them before. I seen loads of butterflies also feasting on the half eaten apples that the jays must have left.

Its a great feeling known you've created something thats beneficial for nature. I love to see the wildlife helping themselves to the phantom planted trees.

Its really got me thinking though about the amount of wildlife I see at our orchard.

Our orchard is left to be wild, we dont do too much with it, it's got hundreds and hundreds of mixed fruits and berries and all the grass is left to do its own thing also.

Over the years its become a little utopia for wildlife and its certainly got a different feel to it from other parts of the forest nearby.

You never see any of the tree planting organisations or conservation groups plant up wild fruit and berry forests. Maybe this is something our landscape needs more off.

From my observations over the past years watching what is happening in and around our orchard and the orchard floor, it seems to be a fast track way of creating so much abundance of wildlife and biodiversity. The mushrooms, the bees, the birds, frogs and even owls have all been spotted in our orchard.

All the fallen fruit rotting into the ground is probably enriching the land quicker than most other trees would do also.

I think this could be an amazing project to start is the planting up of wild fruit and berry forests. People can go and forage from it when they want and the wildlife can take what they want also.

Its amazing to plant up orchards like this and be connected with it, as you watch your creation grow and thrive, turning into a nature palace, so too does your own creativity and imagination.

It definitely stimulates me in a way I never knew existed. I'm being part of creation rather than destruction. A being coming into symbiosis with mother nature rather than a programmed parasite.

I feel my whole inner self has evolved and transformed from connecting and returning to nature.

We are all in debt to mother nature and only us can sort that debt as individuals. I really do believe in what the Buddha says about rebirth and karma, what we are doing now is creating what comes our way tomorrow and in the next life. We are self creating beings.

Keep your thoughts, intentions and actions beneficial for all. 

Try not to let the world delude you. 

All a practice though, keep practicing. 

Peace and love 

The Phantom Planter