Would you like to help bees and butterflies, boost urban biodiversity, and provide natural food sources for birds? Here’s your chance to join me in the McKellar Park Community Butterflyway project by adding native plants to your yard, place of worship, or school ground.
For five years now, I’ve been tending my Corner Pollinator Garden, at the intersection of Fraser Avenue and Sherbourne Road. You may have seen my garden on your way to Produce Depot or McDonalds. This summer I’m branching out, encouraging my neighbours to grow native plants too, to create a Butterflyway corridor.
The Butterflyway Project [https://davidsuzuki.org/take-action/act-locally/butterflyway/] is an initiative of the David Suzuki Foundation to establish community pollinator corridors, called Butterflyways, across the county. Ideally, each Butterflyway consists of at least 12 native plant gardens that will provide food and habitat for native bees, butterflies, and other beneficial insects. Native plant gardens also increase urban biodiversity, are a great places to learn about wildlife, are easy to care for, and are beautiful too.
A Call For Butterflyway Participants
To help neighbourhood Butterflyway gardeners get started, I created optional garden plans for sunny and shady plots, and I am growing native plants for these plans. Now, I need places to put the plants. Would you like to turn a patch of unused lawn into a pollinator planting or add native plants to an existing garden?
While I can provide a plan and seedlings, you will need to plant your own garden, care for the plants, and maintain the garden in the future. Of course, you can also design your own garden and acquire plants from another source. Butterflyway gardens can be any size, but they must include native plants and be maintained in ecologically-friendly ways.
To support participants, I’ll host two webinars – one to introduce native pollinators and pollinator gardening basics, and the second to demonstrate the nuts-and-bolts of planting and looking after your garden. You’re also welcome to tour my habitat gardens to see mature plantings and the insects and birds that visit them.
Call for Volunteers
To create this neighbourhood Butterflyway, I’ll also need volunteers to transplant seedlings into pots, to babysit seedlings until they’re distributed for planting, and to help novice gardeners.
Would you like to participate in the McKellar Park Community Butterflyway to plant a garden or to volunteer? Visit my blog at cornerpollinatorgarden.net to send me an email. On my blog, you can also learn how I transformed our front and back yards into pollinator and bird habitat. I share lots of photos, observations, and lessons I’ve learned along the way.
McKellar Park Community Association 