The Phantom Planter

 Great day yesterday tidying up the Lisnabreeny Community Orchard. Thank you to all the volunteers who came and helped out. We got so much done and the place is looking amazing.  Always feels very uplifting when members of the community meet up like this to do work for the greater good. More of this is needed in society. There is around 600 heritage Irish apple trees here which in the years ahead will produce about 1 million apple a year for the community.  I brought my good friend up yesterday to show him the place for the first time and as he was looking around he said to me -  You know this is a job for life looking after here -  I said I know it is.  He said you'll need to start making money from this in some way then.  How much have money have you invested in this place so far he was asking. I said mate do you know how much money I've spent on self gratification over the years. I would have spent easily hundreds of pounds a week on drink, drugs an...

 On a plus side after all thats happened with the apple trees this is my first ever phantom planted spindle seeds. Looks very like a flower.  They are actually little capsules of seeds. Waited years to see these! Its not just fruit trees I phantom plant. Ive phantom planted thousands of other types of native trees.  No one ever has problem with these types of trees phantom planted.  So if your looking trees to phantom plant that wont be at risk of getting cut down plant natives like spindle or other similar trees that the woodland trust plant.  So much discrimination out there against trees that the community can actually eat from.  Its all wrong. We need wild fruit forest everywhere. They are massive part of whats missing within our ecology.  I have never seen Jay bird before in my life until one landed on my phantom planted apple trees and just started pecking into an apple. An Owl was also spotted in our orchard too.  For Trees and Ulster. My o...

 These are some pics from over the summer of me out cutting the grass around the 88 apple trees that have now been massacred. And one pic from yesterday of the poor trees left to die.  Every apple tree here was a rare heritage Irish variety that I selected myself from old orchards around the country. I grafted these onto mm106 rootstock and nurtured them for nearly a year in our polytunnel before phantom planting out.  I never missed going to back to care for these trees, making sure they were always mulched and the grass cut nice and neat around them. I didn't want them to be a hassle to anyone.   I picked this spot as it was a massive open green space in the estate and the woodland trust had been planting trees in island formations for the past few years in the same field.  I thought sure why not have an island of Irish apple trees for the community and nature to enjoy. Fruit trees are the one thing thats missing from our landscape for nature. The RHS pub...

 Another 88 newly planted community apple trees have been cut down. Done in such a sneaky way, they lifted the tree guards, snipped the tree at the bottom and just left the dead tree in the guard.  It seems friends of belvoir wood who work in association with the Woodland Trust maintain this land and they were out the past week cutting a meadow next to the 88 trees.  Anyone know if Friends of Belvoir Wood did this?  Its also looking like its friends of belvoir wood that maintain the area where another 200 fruit trees were cut down just over a month ago now.  This has all been such a sad time for so many. Grown men have been in tears at the loss of loved ones memorial trees. I've shed a few tears myself over all this. Years of work and dedication has went into this.  Any info be greatly appreciated. Please do message me  Phantomplanter1@gmail.com  These trees will be replaced and cameras put up.  This wont be stopping my dream of making Belvoi...

 Feeling physically sick and sad.  88 of our newly planted heritage apple trees have all been cut at the bottom.  Done in such a sneaky way. They've lifted up the tree guard, snipped the apple tree and dropped it back.  Well over £2000 worth of trees were planted here!  Never mind the man hours looking after it to be vandalized like this!  This is absolutely criminal.  If anyone in Belvoir estate knows or have seen people do this please send me a message. The trees were just off the top of Belvoir drive. Plenty of houses opposite this site. Maybe someone seen something.  I'm so so disheartened with the amount of trees thats been cut down over the past few months.  I still think this is the work of the authorities which they are all denying for some reason. I honestly think they are covering this up.  Back in Spring when the environment agency came to interview me I was adamant with them that I would go to court and defend my trees under ...

 Great keeping the comments turned off on my posts guys. What a liberating experience it has been.   I never was one for social media, all I ever used it for was selling stuff in the past.  When I first started The Phantom Planter page around 7 years ago now I was never intending to have my comments turned on.  I dont really care what others have to say.  I have message that we all need to plant trees and care for nature more and thats it.  The Buddha tells us in this book to be careful of seeking praise, if your moved by praise you'll be moved by blame.  My own ego however got the better of me and I got caught up on here like everyone else having my ego praised and then bruised. Finding myself getting annoyed by the mentally deranged.  I also let my mind get filled with nonsense information that was futile to my own spiritual path and my own inner peace.  I made a big big mistake keeping caught up with the headcases on here in the comme...