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THERE IS A seat in Ballymun where life feels a little lighter. The timber came from a large sycamore that was felled to make way for the new National Children’s Hospital. Three lengths of the huge tree were shaped and sanded into three beautiful benches by Timber Technology students in TU Dublin. They were installed to face each other in a circle around 20 months ago.

Dozens of native trees have since been planted around the benches to create a thriving forest. Alongside it there is a heritage orchard, the young apple trees already fruiting. On the other side sits a small pond. There’s a funny sign to explain another piece of nature habitat – a pile of sticks held in place between fence posts. Ballymun Men’s Shed made the sign reading “Dead Hedge” in the shape of a cross marking a grave.

Nourishing conversations happen on these benches on the grounds of St Pappin’s Pastoral Centre. This pocket forest is loved and minded by the hardworking Ballymun Biodiversity Action Group and the school children and parent and toddler groups who visit and use the space in a way that it was never used when it was a green desert of mown lawn on the church grounds.

Why do we at Pocket Forests want to plant more forests like St Pappin’s in towns and cities around Ireland? In the six years since we set up the project, the idea has grown into a solution to problems we are just beginning to experience. The best time to plant small forests in urban areas was 20 years ago. As the old proverb goes: the second-best time is now.

Trees soften hard-paved landscapes, lower our stress levels, absorb traffic noise and pollution, bring beauty, life, birdsong and wonderment to our lives. As we face ever more extreme weather, urban trees absorb downpours and cool us in heatwaves. They put nature back where it belongs, in the heart of communities, connecting us to a rhythm of light and darkness, vibrancy and dormancy. We give them space, and they give us so much more in return.

Creating pocket forests involves three workshops with our new forest communities who come from all walks of life, young and not so young. During our soil preparation we make the ground more like a forest floor. Our second planting workshop is winter work, tucking the roots of small bare sticks into the regenerated city soil during the coldest darkest months.

Our two-year-old native saplings barely look like trees. For the third workshop we return in early summer to see the trees leafing up and encourage people to give them their attention, notice new leaves and the new insects who are already making their home there. We love when these spaces are used by people to just be, to breathe more deeply and pay attention to the shape of leaves and the sound of the wind moving through them, to be humans being not humans doing.

It’s lazy gardening after that. We step back out of the trees’ way and let them grow. And boy do they grow, stretching for the light, enjoying the shelter of each other, thriving in a way that young native trees can even in hostile urban areas when we make the conditions right for them.

Trees hate to be moved, so the younger they can be planted and then left to thrive in towns and cities, the better. Because no roots are pruned, they can grow deeply into the soil, opening channels that absorb winter downpours. These thriving root systems can access that deeply held water in times of drought.

The plants have been our teachers. The weather has brought plenty of tough lessons to the table. Since Storm Éowyn felled giant trees like matchsticks in January 2025, we have moved to planting only hedgerow species in urban areas. These small trees and native shrubs can anchor deeply and thrive in close quarters with people and buildings, threading wildlife connections between other trees and hedges in parks, gardens and on streets.

There have been plenty of “I can’t believe this is my job,” moments along the way; most of them good. During the deluges of January and February we tested rain gear and wellies alongside muddy and delighted children, determined grownups, teachers, scout leaders, Community Employment workers, business teams and neighbours in a social housing project who got to know each other and put down lasting roots in their new shared green space.

Our work is tied to the seasons. In a few weeks we will dust down our garden forks and start September soil preparation workshops. We will be helping people put more air, life and water into tired city soil. It is a cycle of rejuvenation, a fresh start for a place and the people who live or work or learn there; a chance to see Mother Nature do her powerful work.

The challenges we face are the same as most nature-based enterprises. What we do is different from conventional forestry and urban landscaping. The model of close-planted young saplings feels wrong to conventionally trained foresters and landscapers. This may be down to a heartbreaking phenomenon called shifting baseline syndrome. A pocket forest is how a healthy old-growth forest responds when a large tree falls and makes space for regeneration. Diverse hardy native saplings grow up close to each other in the new open space, racing for the light together.

Unfortunately, in most of our native woodlands, deer or invasive plants graze or smother out this new life, so naturally occurring pocket forests are rare or non-existent occurrences. Our baseline has shifted, so the nature-based solution looks, to our eyes, like a strange phenomenon.

The Miyawaki model of close-planting young native species (named after Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki) is being researched across Europe since its introduction in 2015. Studies are showing trees thriving, high biodiversity value and beneficial social effects.

Finding the money to support our work is a constant challenge. This year we are delighted to be funded by the Guinness Dublin 8 Community Fund to grow eight community forests and work with 80 front garden owners to create 800 square metres of habitat in the country’s least green urban district.

As part of the project, we created a forest on a cargo bike. Eoin the Rowan and his understory of ferns and foxgloves have been arriving on grey footpaths to preside over tea and scones with passersby so we can sit under a tree to talk about city trees. People have loved it.

We share everything we have learned with anyone who wants to create their own garden or community forest with a how-to page on our website. The next step will be to offer Pocket Forests to local authorities as a solution for the EU Nature Restoration Law which will grant existing urban trees and green space protection as vital urban infrastructure.

The government is due to submit a plan to Europe next month on how we plan to fulfil our legal obligation to restore degraded habitats around Ireland. The urban aspect of the law stipulates no net loss of green space during development.

So if a building replaces a green space, then that green space must be replaced within the urban area. From 2030, we will have to increase tree canopy cover. The more local communities are involved in the work, the easier it will be to ensure the beautiful orchards, hedgerows, pocket forests, street trees, ponds and parkland trees – some of the potential urban ecosystems we can co-create – are valued and protected for generations to come.

Catherine Cleary is a journalist and nature activist, and the author of five books on topics ranging from crime to food to homelessness and nature activism. She spent a decade writing about food for The Irish Times and has hosted several podcasts. Catherine began working with trees and urban communities in 2020 when she co-founded Pocket Forests with Ashe Conrad-Jones. In 2023, she helped plant more than 6,000 trees to establish a native woodland of over 24,000 trees in Co Roscommon.

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