Location: 151 Brimwood Blvd, Scarborough, ON M1V 1E5 – Planting date: October 12, 2024
Pictures by Maia, Sanam, Sayeh and Susan
Brimwood Blvd Junior Public School’s native plant garden was established a long time ago – at least 25 years ago – and Susan has been thinking about ways of getting the local community to be more engaged. Our group has stepped in to help guide the children and teachers who take care of it by showing them how to remove invasives ( like the horribly ivy someone let loose there ), grow native plants, and create bee motels.
Here are two views of the garden before the intervention.
While the Project Swallowtail signs, pathways and plantings have helped establish a framework, this past year the school administrators took the bold step of removing an invasive buckthorn growing there. With the tree removed, with the blessing of the school administration, our group stepped in for a weekend “intervention” as we pulled so many buckthorn seedlings, established new plantings and created a very visible ‘insect nesting site’.
The reason it’s so important to remove Common Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) is that it’s a highly invasive species. According to the Ontario Invasive Species Awareness website “It was introduced to North America in the 1880s as an ornamental shrub and was widely planted for fencerows and windbreaks in agricultural fields. Since then it has spread aggressively throughout southern Ontario”. It provides no nutritional or wildlife support value and out-competes native species and establishes large areas with no value. We need to take it out to create plant and wildlife habitats.
In addition to adding signage and marking the perimeter with stakes and bright tape, we also refreshed the pathways with existing mulch and removed invasives and weeded out extra plants.
