A MAJOR logistical operation to move some of Ireland's largest and rarest plants is to begin in the coming months, as valuable species are temporarily taken from their tropical habitats in Dublin's Botanic Gardens to facilitate renovations to the Palm House there.
The Palm House is Ireland's largest greenhouse, 64 feet tall at its highest point. But the 116-year-old structure is showing its age and it is to be renovated as part of a multi-million-pound refurbishment project.
Advertisements inviting tenders for the renovation work were placed yesterday, but the huge task of moving all of the plants in the Palm House will have to be completed before the builders can move in.
"We have been working for the last two years on the logistics of this", said Mr Donal Synnott, director of the Botanic Gardens. "Many of the species are in large containers and can be moved by forklift truck. But some of the plants will have to be laid down on their sides to be moved - something that will have to be done with low-loaders."
Some of the plants are 50 feet in height and more than 100 years old. Plants such as the Palm House's cycads are important from an evolutionary point of view because, although they look like palms, they are related to conifers and have primitive fertilisation characteristics.
Great care will have to be taken in moving the Palm House's Encephalartos Woodii, from South Africa, which is extinct in the wild. Only the house's giant bamboo and banana trees are planted directly in the ground. Root cuttings of these will be taken.
"We have a number of enormous palms which are keeling over and cannot be rescued", Mr Synnott said. "These include canary palms and dead palms, which are 10-a-penny."
Some of the larger plants have already been moved to a 45-foottall greenhouse in the Botanic Gardens which has been fitted with state-of-the-art propagation facilities. A number of other plants have been transferred from the Palm House to other greenhouses on the site.
Mr Synnott said that the Palm House would inevitably have fallen down if the decision to carry out the refurbishment work had not been taken.
He pointed out that the deteriorating condition of the greenhouse had already had a detrimental effect on the plant collection. Over the last four years, a number of glass panels had been blown in, damaging a number of plants.