WE NEED YOUR HELP
Pollinator Plant Pilot Project
Saturday, May 11th, 9am
919 Sugar Bush Road
Please join us on May 11th as we begin work on the Pollinator Plant Restoration Pilot Project | Sugar Bush Road Site. This project cannot move forward without your generous offering of volunteer support. Help us preserve and restore valuable roadside pollinator habitat. Come for the day, come for a few hours. Join your community in a public restoration project. Bring a rake, or bring a shovel and of course bring your enthusiasm and good spirits.
BACKGROUND
The Municipality of Mississippi Mills has approached Indian Creek Orchard Garden to undertake and manage a Pollinator Plant Pilot Project as part of its 2019 wild parsnip management program.
An important objective of this pilot is to improve pollinator habitat by selecting a mix of plant species and site improvements that encourage foraging, breeding, nesting, and overwintering of a variety of pollinator species.
As roadsides can be also corridors for the transport and establishment of noxious or invasive weed species, revegetating roadsides with desirable native species minimizes opportunities for problem species to establish and encroach further.
In this pilot project we will be adopting a 2 km section of Sugar Bush Road along which we will be trialing a variety of restoration methods. At the end of the pilot, the various plots will be assessed to evaluate how effective the various pollinator habitat restoration methods were at controlling the encroachment of wild parsnip. This data will be published and can then be used to inform future efforts in Mississippi Mills and beyond. The ultimate goal is to eliminate the use of chemical herbicides and foster healthy roadside eco-systems.
Scott Sigurdson
Indian Creek Orchard Gardens
919 Sugar Bush Road
Pakenham, ON K0A 2X0
(613) 914-7444
scott@indiancreekorchard.ca
www.indiancreekorchard.ca