Newsletter #19 - Mar/Apr 2023 |
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Help protect pollinators in Mississauga - share this newsletter with friends and family! |
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Above: An exquisite southern Ontario native, prairie smoke thrives in shallow gravels and dry sandy soils, and is perfect for rock gardens. It can start budding in March and its semi-evergreen foliage looks fresh throughout the year. Best of all, its pollen and nectar provides vital energy for hungry queen bumble bees who wake up early in the spring. Photo: Krista Lundgren/USFWS |
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Message from the President Dear BB Members and Supporters, Mother Nature's headlines for March: Be amazed! Happening soon in a woodland near you ...Thermogenesis! Contractile roots! Myrmecochory and eliaosomes! Starring skunk cabbage, blood root, trillium, and a supporting cast of thousands! Early-blooming woodland species' wondrous adaptations are showcased during spring in southern Ontario. Going for a walk through the woods during March and April? Look closely and be dazzled by the efforts nature makes to survive, adapt, and thrive through big and small changes. Inspiring! Join us as we help pollinating insects survive, adapt and thrive. We hope you'll enjoy the bursting forth of our new spring activities this month and next. Happy spring, Jeanne |
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Sustainability is no longer about doing less harm. It’s about doing more good. - Jochen Zeitz Do more good. Join our efforts to provide habitat for our threatened native bees, butterflies and other wildlife species. Become a member Apply for a boulevard garden |
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Apply now for a 2023 boulevard garden |
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Now accepting applications from Mississauga residents for this year's boulevard gardens. Help pollinators - Get up to 50 FREE plants. Species are native to the Credit River Watershed and approved by the City of Mississauga. Left: Ruby throated hummingbirds love nectar-rich native bee balm and wild bergamot flowers in our habitat gardens. Photo ©Peeter Poldre. | | |
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Garden Buzz The Spring Blooms are Coming! |
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By Pamela Sleightholm Gardeners look forward to spring – when the snow has melted away and those small signs of life start to rise out of the soil. Those early blooming plants are important to us, but they’re important to pollinators as well. Here are some of the early-blooming native plants that we can look forward to in Southern Ontario, and some of the pollinators that depend on them. Consider adding these beauties to your garden this spring...Get the list >>> |
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Golden Alexander (Zizia aurea) A low-growing early bloomer, Golden Alexander has long-lasting yellow flowers. It is a larval host plant for black swallowtail butterflies, meaning that it is one of only a few plants that its caterpillars can eat. It also provides food for Andrena ziziae, a specialist native miner bee. Photo ©Peeter Poldre |
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Native garden to-do list: March/April Do some garden planning. Where can you tuck in a few more native plants? What about making a woodland garden in a shady spot under trees? Is this the year you tackle your boulevard? What about helping a friend design a native plant garden? Get started by taking our Design Your Own Pollinator Garden workshop Order native plants and/or seeds! Looking for seed or plant sources in Ontario? See our list of recommended native seed sources and order them online or shop in person. Take a course or attend a presentation! Register for a free BB online workshop, or attend Jeanne's free presentations at the Riverwood Conservancy and elsewhere in Mississauga. Other great programs are offered by groups across the province and by organizations such as NANPS, Remove invasive species on your property and surrounding areas. Find resources/ learn more from Ontario's Invading Species Awareness Program Protect woody plants against hungry nibblers during the winter months. Wire cages around tasty favorites will discourage rabbits, and bark wraps discourage mice. Deer require more elaborate structures. Get the iNaturalist app for your smartphone to help identify plants and wildlife, and report sightings of wild fauna and flora.
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Mark your calendarComing Events |
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Upcoming BB Webinars Interesting, informative, and relevant - We conduct our workshops as FREE online presentations with a question period afterward. Helpful information sheets are downloadable. Design Your Own Native Pollinator Garden Sat. Mar. 11 @ 10:00 a.m Learn all the best ways to provide food and shelter for native pollinators, while delighting your family and neighbours with textures, shapes and colours. You will learn to assess site conditi0ns and create a beautiful garden design that meets pollinator, plant and your own needs. The challenges of tough sites such as boulevards and balconies will be addressed and design templates will be available for download. Beauty and Biodiversity through the Seasons Sat. Mar. 25 @ 10:00 a.m With a little bit of planning your native garden can look beautiful in all seasons, even as flowers fade. Discover how to extend the color show and textural interest in your landscape through fall and winter with beautiful foliage, striking structure, and colorful branches, berries, seed pods that support the wildlife around you while you enjoy the show. Wildflower All-Stars for Sun and Shade Sat. Apr. 8 @ 10:00 a.m Beautiful native wildflowers will make your garden come alive! Go beyond black-eyed Susans - discover our local wildflowers and their amazing variety of shapes and colours. Indigenous to southwestern Ontario, these easy-to-grow beauties are beloved by pollinators. Learn which native plants will work best for you and your garden. |
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Look for Blooming Boulevard's booth at these fun events! wide variety of fresh native seeds for sale, including hard-to-find species. * Seeds sourced locally and are native to the Credit River Watershed. connect with your fellow gardeners get answers to your gardening questions learn more about native plants and seeds family-friendly activities
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Seedy Saturday Mississauga Saturday March 4, 2023 9:30 am - 3:30 pm Unitarian Congregation in Mississauga 84 South Service Road, Mississauga, ON L5G 2R9 (QEW and Highway 10) Mississauga's Seed Library ReLaunch Saturday March 11, 2023 10:30 am - 1:30 pm Small Arms Inspection Building 1352 Lakeshore Rd E, Mississauga (Dixie Rd & Lakeshore E.) |
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Eco Day at Eden Sunday March 26, 2023 2:00 pm - 4:30 pm Eden United Church 3051 Battleford (north west corner of Battleford and Winston Churchill) Presenters: Lorraine Johnson "Wild About Bees" Jeanne McRight "Beauty and Biodiversity - How to Create a Native Plant Garden" Credit Valley Conservation "Top Trees"
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Meet a Member: Dr. Saundra HewittGardening plays a huge role in mental health for surgeon By Heather Raithby Doyle |
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Our member’s profile this month features Dr. Saundra Hewitt, a veterinary orthopedic surgeon who specializes in dogs’ knees. When it comes to operating and giving dogs a chance for a healthy, active life, Saundra is, dare we say, the ‘bee’s knees’? Thanks to her grandparents’ influence, Saundra is also an exceptional, lifelong gardener. Her property in Port Credit, close to Lake Ontario, features exuberant gardens in what once “looked like a soccer field”, a wildlife pond, cold frames, and a constant flitting of birds. |
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Still, Saundra says she had a “mind-flip” about a year ago after she attended a talk about native plants by Blooming Boulevard’s Jeanne McRight at a local garden club. “How is it possible I have been gardening my life and I don’t know any of this?” she says. Saundra used to scour the gardening magazines for the latest and greatest plants but now that has lost its lustre since none of them are ever native. She gave up her subscriptions. This new perspective on native plants is a welcome challenge to someone who loves to learn. Below: Dr. Saundra Hewitt's beautiful garden (upper image), filled with increasing numbers of native plants, including the fall-blooming asters and goldenrods (lower image). Photos: Saundra Hewitt. |
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Saundra has grown her own plants from seeds for years, meticulously documenting the humidity, sprout rate, date sown, temperature and more on spreadsheets: “I love a good experiment.” She now volunteers to stratify native plant seeds with Blooming Boulevards, and grows plants for the plant sale. Left: Saundra's "good experiments" Photo: Heather Raithby Doyle |
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She is also starting to work on an idea she shared with Blooming Boulevards; the creation of The Bug Project, a photographic database of insects, butterflies, bees and more, that each native plant featured on the website supports. In her busy life running her own veterinary clinic, Saundra finds the operating room and the garden are balms against life’s stresses...Read more about the healing powers of her native plant garden>> |
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The Bug Project Launch! A Letter to you from Saundra Hi everyone! I am hoping to increase awareness for Blooming Boulevards by using Doug Tallamy's idea that people will care about nature if they see what we are trying to save and why our native plants matter. My hope is not only to show people which insects we are trying to save by planting natives, but also to generate interest in watching them in the boulevard gardens! Personally, I am really hoping to see the Eastern-tailed blue butterfly someday (I planted a tick trefoil from last year's plant sale)! We are planning on adding a link from our website under "Our Plants" to pictures of some of the interesting bugs/moths/butterflies that depend on them. We are also hoping to use them for social media posts too. I am putting an emphasis on pretty butterflies instead of all the similar looking brown moths to generate interest in "not-yet" bug lovers but I agree, they are all equally important. We have an entomologist willing to help us but I would prefer to use our pictures when possible. Some species have too many larval hosts (that are similar in appearance) so I've chosen the more interesting ones but I will use whatever we can find. Ideally, I would love to use the pictures of the insects on the actual plant highlighted in each slide but I will use what we have and change them out when we get something better. If you know that name of the insect you have a picture of, please include but no worries if not. Below, I have an example but also have all of the plants/insects pages in the powerpoint below. The red outlined pictures are the ones I copied from the internet and we need to replace and the others can be replaced if you have a better picture on the plant we are highlighting (they were just ones I took last year). If I've made a mistake, please point it out, I'm just learning.
If you have bug pictures, please send them to bloomingb.bugs@gmail.com with a note giving us permission to use them for social media and the website.
Thanks! Saundra Below: Example page from The Bug Project: Showy tick trefoil, one of our BB plants, and some of the many bugs it attracts. Images with red outlines need to be replaced with photos from our own gardens that BB members send in. |
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Invasive species Unwelcome Visitors – A walk along the Lisgar Meadow Brook TrailStory and photos by Diana Westland, Mississauga Master Gardener |
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Lisgar Creek is an area naturalized over the years through the efforts of the city conservation authorities, and community volunteers. Unfortunately, invasive plant species have crept in uninvited and are gradually taking hold. Seeds have infiltrated the area, by wind, or by opportunistic seeds carried by animals and people from other areas. The saddest reality is that some are preventable garden escapees, illustrating the dangers of growing invasive plants in our gardens. Read more>> Left: Lesser periwinkle (Vinca minor) is still sold in garden centres but is an invasive species, spreads quickly and harms natural areas. Find out what to replace it with – see Grow Me Instead (Southern Ontario) or Grow Me Instead (Northern Ontario) |
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Invasive Species Awareness Week Feb. 20-26, 2023! Like/share/retweet posts created by participating organizations, or creating your own posts, using the hashtag #InvSpWk APPLY for Mississauga's Garlic Mustard Task Force here>>
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We need your help Year-round volunteer opportunities Something for everyone – Here are some of the interesting chances to get involved with a team of like-minded, dedicated people who will welcome you. Training and mentoring is offered as part of our volunteer programs. |
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Helpers needed who would like to work with plants directly and/or help with our spring plant distribution and plant sale. Volunteer here>> Do you have experience with PR initiatives and/or writing for publications? Please get in touch - we need help getting the word out as we increase focus on developing and extending our programs in the upcoming year.Volunteer here>> We are looking for people with leadership and communication skills and enough free time to help with our outreach activities. It's an exciting time to get involved in our growing organization! Volunteer here>> |
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To all BB garden stewards, volunteers, and membersGet connected! Join our private Facebook group where Blooming Boulevards' garden stewards, volunteers and member native plant growers can connect with each other. Group experts are available to answer your questions. Share photos, observations, tips and questions and learn together in this private members-only group! Find out more/join here>> |
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Join our Board of Directors 🌼 We want to add Mississauga-area members to our Board of Directors and encourage expressions of interest. If you would like to join our lively, active and interesting board, please contact Jeanne at info@bloomingboulevards.org for more information.
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Thank you! Blooming Boulevards is deeply thankful to have the support of the City of Mississauga, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, and our community partners the Riverwood Conservancy, the Mississauga Master Gardeners, the Cloverleaf Garden Club, ACER, and Ecosource. A huge thanks to all our members, volunteers, supporters and donors who continue to help us provide habitat to pollinators and protect the wild plants and animals that share our urban neighbourhoods. We can't do this without you! |
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Our 2022 - 2023 Board of Directors Jeanne McRight, Founding President Jacqueline McKernan, Secretary Archna Gupta, Treasurer Wayne Cardinalli Sheila Cressman MJ Kucerak Murray Moore Pamela Sleightholm Communications Jeanne McRight Pamela Sleightholm Heather Raithby Doyle Photography (unless otherwise noted) Jeanne McRight Strategic Advisor Douglas Markoff |
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Blooming Boulevards is an incorporated Ontario not-for-profit organization and a thankful recipient of funding from the City of Mississauga and the Ontario Trillium Foundation. |
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