Greenbelts – Austin Bunton Designs

These are the green woods that surround some houses, some neighborhoods, and some entire sections of our city.

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Table of Contents:

Preface
Greenbelt Specifics
Elven Mana Springs
Note
Additionally
Relevant Holidays
Novels Excerpt
Locations (Images Begin)
Within
Canopies & Tree-lines
Views like in WoW
2023 August Update: Trailhead Map-boards
2024 May/+

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Preface:

All of the areas in Inisfree with plants are landscaped, growing under controlled conditions, and have aphrodisiacs, colorful plants, and fragrant ones (a.k.a. aromatics), all of which are non-invasive. However, the term ‘landscaping’, when used colloquially, refers to the personal gardens, large flower pots doubling as traffic filters (allowing pedestrian while preventing vehicular), and normal-sized front and backyards, as well as the lawns designed for public viewing, such as in parks, and the rooftop farms and gardens. Flora across our city is typically categorized by size, and kept in areas with distinct borders, evident in the size of the plant-life they contain. Here are the basics:

Landscaping: a no-canopy area; shortest plants, such as those commonly found in gardens, meadows, yards, and the like, always with direct sunlight, and no ‘smart-plants’ (plants in no-canopy areas do not respond to passersby)
Biolume: a sometimes-canopy area; shorter plants, often with direct sunlight, and which glow and change various colors, especially evident in low light and nighttime
Forests: ‘greenbelts’ which are single-canopy; regular-sized plants, such as small to average-height trees
Swamp: the double-canopy of a jungle; taller and thicker plants, including house-sized trees and vines
The Ferngully Crater: the true-rainforest’s triple-canopy; giants including trees several stories tall and taller, mushrooms big enough to function as group umbrellas, and flowers you can use as chairs

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Greenbelt Specifics:

“Location, Location, Location”

Every region and ‘hood in Inisfree is interwoven and shielded in a lush, thick, easily accessible greenbelt, ensuring ample exposure to regulated, healthy pollen, and geographically-universal maximum fresh atmosphere. Greenbelts also serve as natural sound barriers, preventing noise pollution, and as distinctive landmarks clearly visually and physically separating adjacent regions and attractions.

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Elven Mana Springs:

Mana is the term in many novel and video game sagas for magical energy. Mana springs, like hot springs, are where this substance or energy can be found in abundance. In Inisfree, there are both; hot springs used as outdoor thermal baths, and mana springs used to refresh the spirit. Like ley-lines converging at certain points around the world, mana springs are focal points where it is easier to recharge one’s ‘spiritual batteries’. Though the entire city, Inisfree, is one giant mana spring and ley-lines convergence zone, there are exceptionally well charged spots designed to be naturally occurring throughout its many regions. Inisfreeans refer to these spots as elven mana springs, as it has been the Elf race for many millennia which knew the most about these things. You can find most of these special spots in Inisfree’s greenbelts; just walk out into the tree-line, spend several minutes relaxing and thinking of nothing while you sit or stand somewhere in the deep woods, and your sensory perception will begin to sharpen to the point that you can easily feel these ‘elven mana springs’ even at a distance of a few miles.

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Note:

Building upon the science of mana, energy meridians (as in acupuncture), and ley-lines (the energy meridians of planets and moons), the Governor and his people have built one of their most sacred and beloved temples and lovemaking centers at the pinpoint center of the top of Inisfree’s largest mountain, for it has been said –and thoroughly tested around the world– that mountains, even more than deep forests, are particularly great conductors of this energy some call mana (and that is one of the main reasons why the pyramids were shaped and built as thickly as they were). For more information, travel here.

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Additionally:

* Inisfree has 26 large greenbelts and hundreds of smaller ones.

Chaga grows on many of our trees, and our people pick it and make tea with this fungus; to prevent things such as cancer (though, of course, no one in Inisfree can be harmed nor fall ill). People only pick chaga here and abroad if they need it; they make sure to save the vast majority of all of these tree mushrooms for others. It is not something that can be found in our grocery store.

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Relevant Holidays:

7 January (7 Janus on our calendar): Beans
10 January (10 Janus on our calendar): House-plants
12 January (12 Janus on our calendar): ‘Farmacy’ Day (how healthy plants (never pharmaceuticals) heal/cure all)
4 February (6 Februus on our calendar): Stuffed Mushrooms
12 February (15 Februus on our calendar): Plums
26 February (1 Mars on our calendar): Pistachios
1 March (4 Mars on our calendar): Almond Butter
9 March (12 Mars on our calendar): Butterflies
12 March (15 Mars on our calendar): Holi (Festival of Colors) – because we make all the colored dye/powder from plants here
15 March (18 Mars on our calendar): Tea
18 March (21 Mars on our calendar): Cabbage
24 March (27 Mars on our calendar): Fragrances
26 March (1 Aperire on our calendar): Spinach
12 April (18 Aperire on our calendar): Pecans
13 April (19 Aperire on our calendar): Peaches
19 April (25 Aperire on our calendar): Garlic
23 April (1 Maiesta on our calendar): Zucchini
28 April (6 Maiesta on our calendar): Arbor Day (plant or celebrate a tree)
*Usually there is no more tree-planting in Inisfree, as all the seeding/landscaping has already been completed, and the plants in our realm are immortal.
6 May (14 Maiesta on our calendar): Oranges
15 May (23 Maiesta on our calendar): Chocolate Chips
28 May (8 Venus on our calendar): Composting
6 June (17 Venus on our calendar): Gardens/Gardening
10 June (21 Venus on our calendar): Herbs & Spices
14 June (25 Venus on our calendar): Fresh Veggies
8 July (21 Auzdein on our calendar): Blueberries
31 July (16 Shakira on our calendar): Lughnasadh Eve (festival to mark the annual wheat harvest –in the Outlands; in Inisfree, we harvest more than annually)
3 August (19 Shakira on our calendar): Nuts
4 August (20 Shakira on our calendar): Watermelon
16 August (4 Agharta on our calendar): Honey-bee Awareness
4 October (25 Harvest on our calendar): Kale
13 October (6 Thor on our calendar): Farming/Farmers’ Day
20 October (13 Thor on our calendar): Fruit
19 November (15 Odin on our calendar): Broccoli
23 November (19 Odin on our calendar): Cashews
29 November (25 Odin on our calendar): Asparagus
2 December (28 Odin on our calendar): Red Apple
12 December (10 Nibiru on our calendar): Lupines
17 December (15 Nibiru on our calendar): Maple Syrup

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Novels Excerpt:

After breakfast with a view from one of the balcony patios of Arch City, Auz showed Lucifera into one of the nearby greenbelts. Inisfree had many of these single-canopy forested areas, and all of them had the pleasant faint fragrance of remote wildernesses full of trees and flowers. They also had moss-covered boulders, tiny streams and tributaries, and mana springs which automatically balanced and recharged any passerby’s aura.

Other Inisfreeans and their guests could be seen at a distance, entering and exiting the same tree-line, some of them hugging or kissing once inside, and all of them visibly entering a better mood the closer they got to each mana spring. They were doing this in all the other greenbelts of the city, too. Most people who came to their city made sure to reserve plenty of time to hike out to and camp in, or otherwise enjoy, these special woodlands.

Elves and Fairies were the most common in the greenbelts, and not just because their races were the most connected with such biomes; they were among those who helped grow and maintain them, their mindsets ensuring every plant, from single blades of grass all the way up to the tallest trees, felt as happy and loved as can be. These people appreciated plants more than anyone, and their practices and masonry all reflected that, also helping visions of them at their healthiest… to manifest and maintain for eternity.

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Locations:

Take a look at that last image; the map. Basically, if it’s dark green on that map, it’s one of our greenbelts.

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Within:

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Canopies & Tree-lines:

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Views like in WoW:

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2023 August Update: Trailhead Map-boards

There are now thousands of these vertical poster-size maps in Inisfree, much like the maps Outlanders often have posted on wooden trailhead signage areas/structures. All of our trailheads have two maps, the first being the uniform/identical map of our entire city (within the perimeter wall), and the second being a zoomed-in portion of that map. Now it is that much easier to plan your day and find your way whenever you are exploring the many trails all over and around our central mountain.

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2024 May/+:

Before we learned how to make everything in our realm eternally healthy (immortal and always in its prime), we had normal plants brought in as seeds and starts/saplings. For years, those grew like “normal” plants in the Outlands (not immortal, thus losing pieces here and there). That caused layers of shed bark, pine needles, leaves, flower petals, stems, twigs, branches, moss, pinecones, seeds (what nuts are in), sap, and more to build up on top of our terrain and terra preta.
Today and forevermore, our plants will still shed little pieces as it suits them, though they will never atrophy, decay, wither, die, or fall. Hikers will notice all those things on our trails, all of the shed parts in different stages of decomposition as they become part of our soil.

Our trails are kept ‘soft’; healthy green grasses, cool mud in patches/intervals, no tiny sharp pebbles, etc..

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2024 June 9 Sunday: forest… for rest

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2024 June 16 Sunday: Humans in our realm don’t have harmful unnatural/chemical things in their piss or poop, so them “doing their business” in the great outdoors doesn’t harm the soil/plants. We ask that they relieve themselves out of sight of others, and downwind and downstream, as far away from people and flowing water as possible. ICVs can always disintegrate whatever (excreted waste) is unsightly or in an inopportune area.