Toronto Nature Stewards-Taking Care of Our Ravines

If you live close to ravine, would you like to learn how to identify native and invasive planets, collaborate with a team of volunteers while enjoying some nature therapy?

This is The Garden Shift and I'm your host, Tina Cesaroni

You know my guest, Toronto Master Gardener, Pat Concessi.

0:23

Today she is back to speak to us in her role as a Toronto Nature Steward.

We talk about how the organization was formed during the pandemic by a dedicated group of caring citizens.

The role of a volunteer, and how we can do better in our own gardens to identify and remove invasive plants.

0:43

I hope you enjoy this episode.

Welcome back, Pat.

Hi Tina, It's good to be back on the garden shift and really excited about talking about something a little bit different today.

0:59

Well, I'm really interested in the Toronto Nature Stewards and everything they do.

I would say that there are community of nature restoration volunteers and they're passionate about building urban ecosystems that are self-sustaining.

I know there's a lot of sites across Toronto.

1:16

We're going to talk about your site.

I know that they remove harmful plants, they plant native species, remove trash, and educate others in their community about natural ecosystems.

Before we get into all of that, let's just start with a bit of background about you and how you got involved in this group.

1:34

OK, well this kind of opens another story.

But when I retired, I decided that I wanted to walk the Camino de Santiago, and I found a fabulous group of people in Toronto who walked the Toronto ravines, getting themselves ready for the Camino de Santiago.

1:52

So I walked the ravines with that group probably for 10 years when I first retire.

And I found that where people would look at the forest and see green trees and shrubs, they would interpret that as a healthy ecosystem.

2:08

But I saw areas of monoculture, of invasive plants and other areas, not monocultures, but other areas where invasive plants were a large percentage of the plants growing there.

And I saw a lot fewer of the native plants that I knew walking the ravine.

2:27

As a kid.

So growing up in Toronto, we used to see trilliums.

There were places we went to see skunk cabbages and marsh marigolds, and you just saw a lot more native species in the ravine.

So as much as I loved my walking group, I wanted to be doing something for the forest, not just walking through it.

2:47

And this was part of my process of reconciling with the land as well.

Sorry I'm interrupting you, Pat, but when you said skunk cabbage, I had no idea that there was ever skunk cabbage in in Toronto.

Yeah, we used to go to Highland Creek this certain day in the spring to smell this trunk cabbage, and I think it grew there along with Marsh Marigold.

3:07

But, you know, there's a lot of places where there's been infrastructure put into our ravines, storm sewers and more roads and larger paths.

But but I think invasives are a big part of the decline of the of the native plants.

So I was lucky to be part of a a small but very committed group of people who felt the same way.

3:29

One of them is Cathy Burka, who I actually met at Toronto Botanical Garden Ravine Symposium.

So we got to talking and maybe a month later she asked me if I had time for a coffee.

And people who know Cathy will know that if she invites you for a coffee, she's going to make a request.

3:47

Small request, but it'll be about 5, maybe 10 years.

Before you see.

The end of that request.

So we recognize that the city didn't have the resources to manage the removal of invasives on such a large scale, and we were imagining a future where citizens would be committed to care for a piece of their local ravine.

4:09

So either a piece of land at the end of the street or a place they'd toboggan does a kid or walk the dog, a piece of land that really meant something to them.

Because when people get attached to a piece of land and care about it, you really look forward to going and and taking care of that piece of land.

4:29

Removing, picking up the garbage in the spring and removing the invasives and getting often we remove invasives and we protect a small group of native plants that are there.

And now five years later, that's quite a substantial patch.

So the barrier to getting citizens involved is a bylaw.

4:49

So the city has a by law that prohibits anyone damaging or removing a plant from a ravine or natural area.

And I think it might be from a park as well.

So we we spent a year working with a couple of counselors and drafting Emmanuel and negotiating permission from the city to remove specific invasive plants from specific sites and always led by a trained volunteer and train nature that training together.

5:20

OK, so, so much here that you've told me already.

So I didn't realize that you were a cofounder of Toronto Nature Stewards.

I think that's pretty cool.

But because we're digging, we're going right into the detail.

Now let's define invasive for our listeners before we carry on, and then I'll let you go on with your story.

5:36

So let's see if we agree on this.

I would say that invasive species is an introduced species, either an animal or a plant or a microorganism found outside of its natural range that causes harm or poses a threat to the environment or society at large.

5:54

Would you agree with that?

I would.

OK.

So you carry on.

Now you're working with councillors in Toronto.

Well, we actually met as a group for the first time in, I think it was about February of 20, and we met in a conference room down at UT and there were people there from all aspects of different environmental groups.

6:15

And about a month later the pandemic started.

We had initially thought that Councillor Pasternak had was willing to present a motion saying that this group would work under defined terms with an established protocol.

Well, when COVID started, we realized there was no way that the city with all their other responsibilities, had time to develop that protocol.

6:36

So we said, you know, we all had all kinds of time.

So we said we would we would draft a manual.

And we did that with a couple of interns from the Uof T Institute of Forest and Conservation.

And we've always had a really close partnership with them.

6:53

And so we, we developed that manual and in the fall of that year, Councillor Pasternak brought it back to the Environment and Infrastructure group.

And, and we, we made a submission to them as well.

And part of that submission was our personal commitment that we would have boots on the ground by the time the garlic mustard bloomed because there's been moving slowly with the city and we wanted to connect them with that botanical imperative.

7:21

You know, botany doesn't wait for anybody.

When spring comes, the garlic mustard is going to bloom.

And we didn't want to stand by one more year while it spread even further.

OK, now garlic mustard.

Is it invasive?

Yes, OK.

So went to remove because it spreads by seed.

7:41

So if you pull it before the seed distributes, you can you can get on top of it quite effectively quite soon.

And the other thing that it does is it's the only plant with a white bloom at that time of year when it blooms.

So many of our sites partner with local schools at Sherwood, we partner with a, a troop of Girl Guides and we come in and collectively pull all the garlic mustard and lay it down to decompose and keep an eye on it, make sure that it doesn't go along further and develop seed.

8:14

But we can, we can really involve the community with the garlic mustard.

So.

Let's talk about your Sykes.

I know there's a number of sites throughout Toronto, so tell us a little bit about your site.

The first year we got started, we had nine sites and one of them was our site at Sherwood.

8:31

So Sherwood Park is between Eglinton and Lawrence, and it is east of Mount Pleasant Rd.

So the park itself runs all the way over to Bayview, but our stewardship site is on the West side of the park.

It's just a small piece of the park and we have a really committed group of stewards, sort of 12 or 14 of us, who are out quite regularly.

8:54

We meet every Thursday morning at 8:30.

Most of us are retired, although there are a couple of people who are able to work remotely or flex their hours and they join us for whatever time they have.

One of the wonderful things about Toronto Nature Stewards is you could join a stewardship group at anytime through the growing season.

9:12

I know some other gardening, community gardening stewardship groups.

If you don't sign up in March or April, you can't get involved.

But we have people who walk by while we're stewarding in September and expressing interest and you know, you can join us right then and there.

9:29

Awesome.

So, so we're looking at April now and you've got your group of people meeting Thursdays at 8:30 AM.

So what do you what are you looking to remove or do in April on a shift?

Well, one of the things that we like to to get done early in April is look for invasive shrubs.

9:50

Invasive shrubs often come from a milder climate and they're genetically keyed to leaf out earlier, so they get their leaves earlier than our native shrubs do.

So you can walk around in the spring and really pick out the invasive any suckle because it's in leaf sooner than any of the native plants that grow in that under those same conditions.

10:13

And that's also one thing that makes it invasive and that damages the ecology because those plants leaf out so early.

Our native plants that grow in those shady understory conditions in a forest, they count on having full sunlight until the native trees leaf out.

10:32

So those plants emerge from the ground, they grow their stems and their leaves, and they flower and they bloom and they set seed, and they do all of that before the leaves come on the trees.

So when we have invasive plants like Norway Maple, buckthorn, these invasive honeysuckles, they cut off the light supply to those native ephemeral understory plants.

10:55

OK, so when you talk about honeysuckle, you're talking about a species of learning Lonicera, correct?

Lana, Sarah, I'm talking about hammer bells, Moral Tatarian.

Now I can't tell any of those species apart unless they're in bloom and then you know that it's white or it's or it's pink.

11:14

Although I think there are some probably horticultural hybrids that start white and turn pink anyway, whether they are one of those species or not, the thing that we look for is a hollow stem.

An invasive honeysuckle has a hollow stem.

So we just click the stem and if it's hollow, it's invasive and we know that that's something we want to remove.

11:35

In the area where we had them at Sherwood, it was quite a job to remove them because it was growing in the middle of a clump of choke cherry, which is a very desirable understory native plant.

So we had to send our best stewards in to to do a really careful job, really pretty much stem by stem.

11:55

Are you going in with shovels and digging out trying to get root systems up for the honeysuckles?

Yeah, and it sure would.

It's it's quite possible to do because we're in a patch of sandy soil despite being up in North York, so we we can easily dig them out.

Yeah, give me some examples of early native ephemerals.

12:14

OK, now when I say this, I have to say these are not native ephemerals that we're lucky enough to have.

It sure would, but they would bother trilliums, trout lilies, hepatica, any of those spring ephemerals.

We have those plants getting started at our site, but it's because we planted them.

12:34

So you plan, but I'm sure that there are sites in Toronto where people can walk on trails and see in the distance and the ravine some of our native ephemerals that are that are so beautiful.

Think that they're not present at our site, as I suspect our site was, was farmed sometime in the last 100, 150 years.

12:54

And part of our site we know for sure was all mowed grass 30 years ago because one of our lead stewards remembers her kids to bargaining on that hill.

And now it's got now it's got great thing black walnut trees on it.

But they were all planted by the city.

13:10

So it shouldn't really surprise us that these ephemerals didn't survive in the seed bank long enough to be, you know, to be part of the understory.

Today, so you're digging up these invasives, which is good, and removing them, but you're creating disturbance in the ravine.

13:27

So what's the next step?

Well, then the next step is to put in native plants to replace those some extent.

When we dig out a plant, we disturb things as little as possible, sending in as few people as possible.

Well, here's a good example.

13:43

Last year we took a bunch of euonymus out.

I think it it's Emerald Gaiety or winter creeper, one of those two.

Boy, does that stuff ever spread when it gets in the ravine.

We have quite a large area and we were concerned about leaving a bear patch.

14:02

We didn't remove the whole thing all at once.

And by fall, the Virginia Waterleaf was back in there.

Now, Virginia Waterleaf was a native plant.

It might not be a plant that you would feature in your garden because it doesn't have a showy bloom, but it is present in a lot of other parts of our site.

14:20

And it was present around the edges there.

And it almost seemed like it had a root system there.

When we took the yuan animus, which is a woody shrub, When we took that out, the Virginia Water leaf was almost thanking us and saying, now I've got room to to really get reestablished here.

14:36

We try to remove invasives first in places where there is a population of native plants which can then spread out.

OK, then there's always the risk that there's a influx or a population of something else lying dormant, like Scilla or Periwinkle or Lily of the Valley, of course.

14:57

And when we removed a lot of the garlic mustard and hedge parsley, we the next year we had more Queen Annes lace and more chicory than I could believe.

Now Queen Annes lace and chicory aren't on our list of approved plants to remove.

15:14

And frankly, some of our stewards, and you'd know them, Tina, because they're Master Gardeners as well.

They love that colour of the white in the blue blooming together.

And yeah, it really was pretty.

But we do run the risk of of having invasives move in and that's why we start by removing in places where there is a population of native plants to take over.

15:36

And if there isn't, then we plant the native.

But really, the place where we see periwinkle and English Ivy growing most in the ravines is immediately beside a backyard, because they spread by roots and stolons, and they don't know even that there's a fence there.

15:55

Of course, of course they can travel.

Let's just talk a little bit about native populations that you see doing well in the ravines.

OK, at our site we see dogwoods, primarily pagoda Dogwood, which is Cornus alternifolia and it's a beautiful tree.

16:12

It's sometimes called the wedding cake tree because it's branches form such beautiful horizontal layers.

And we see that it actually does all right underneath the mature Norway maples.

So quite a dark environment, but we see the the Dogwood there and we see sumac.

16:29

And boy, the sumac loves to grow wherever the mold lawn ends and the forest starts, right?

And that's a place where we actually thought that we might plant what we were thinking of as sort of a linear Meadow.

But the dog would really came through when we took out the the Thistle and mother wart.

16:48

So it's a great plant too.

So the sumacs are generally the staghorn.

Or do you have?

Other species Staghorn Sumac.

Yeah, OK, They're gorgeous and fantastic for wildlife, right?

8:00 We also have a few witch Hazel, which is the lovely plant.

17:07

I'm not sure how much you see them around the city.

I would probably have trouble identifying them most of the year.

I think the city probably planted those.

Right before we go off, what you see growing, I'm always interested when I'm walking with friends and they see a whole blanket of periwinkle or blanket of Lillian Valley and they're enthralled by the beauty of it.

17:31

And can you just, you know, go through why that is not evidence of a healthy ecosystem?

OK.

And I, I, we're exactly the same comment.

Plants that grow in our environment are the base of our food system.

17:47

So the plants have evolved over 10,000 years to live together with the insects that are here.

So the insects pollinate the plants and the plants provide a larval food source.

So the caterpillars that are going to turn into butterflies, if a plant hasn't been here for that period of evolution, then it might not play any role in that food chain.

18:14

So if caterpillars can't eat it and bees aren't interested in it and all the soil nematodes and fungus and bacteria, it's it's bringing something that has evolved in a different environment into our environment.

And sometimes those plants outcompete the native plants because they have no nobody feeding on them does tend to become that monoculture.

18:36

Right.

And we're always looking for diversity in species, right?

Yes.

So the the more plants you see on a forest floor, I think would indicate a healthier ecosystem.

Yeah, so and it's.

Actually an ecosystem that will come back from any kind of disturbance more readily.

18:54

You mentioned a couple times about what you're allowed to plant as Toronto Nature stewards.

Can you just give me a little bit of a review of that, what your permissions from the city are?

OK, so our permissions are for herbaceous plants.

And by herbaceous plant we mean something that dies back completely in the winter.

19:12

If it's a perennial, its roots are alive through the winter and will generate new growth in the spring.

But we are not allowed to plant any woody plants.

I think this might be the cities concerned that we'll we'll put an oak tree someplace and then that plant is going to be there hopefully for hundreds of years.

19:30

What I would like to be able to plant is things like radios your Dogwood.

But I'm very happy to be able to plant the herbaceous plants.

When you plant herbaceous, we generally plant first year seedlings.

So they would be a plant that's grown, you know, at most in a four inch pot.

19:47

So planting that is really just putting a trowel in the ground, pulling back to make a hole and popping that plant in the ground.

We only plant native plants and we only plant native plants.

Growing from locally sourced seed because we want to respect the genetic diversity of Toronto species plants.

20:10

We don't want to be introducing a zigzag goldenrod that came from Iowa.

OK, give me some examples of some seedlings that you would plant.

So we plan to zigzag goldenrod.

We we like to focus on the keystone plants to the extent that we can Golden rods, we planted bluestem goldenrod and both of those because our site is to some extent shady.

20:34

And also we have all the tall or Canada goldenrod we need.

So we aren't planning to getting more of that.

We've planted New England aster and largely faster, and we planted wild Columbine and we planned it because it's a plant that we hope people walking by will notice and start to see change.

20:54

So we want things that are colourful, bloom for a long period that people will start to recognize and say, hey, something's going on here.

Nice.

OK.

And so where are you getting these locally sourced seedlings from?

Well, we're fortunate in having support from Stephen Smith from Euphora, Urban Forestry, whatever and he he does a collective purchase for all of Toronto nature stewards.

21:18

And most years in the past, we've got maybe 40 plants, but we have limited resources.

And I think as time moves forward, those plants will go to new sites, not brand new sites because we think you should care for a piece of land for a year and really know what's there before you start planting.

21:39

But once a site has been stewarded for a couple of years, they're eligible to plant.

And for the most part, they would be the ones getting the TNS plants.

In the last couple of years, TNS has started growing our own plants from seed and we do that up at up at the greenhouse at at Downsview.

21:56

So it collects need from clients on our own sites.

So that's the local sourcing and we cold moist stratify it, which I'm sure you've talked about on another garden shift, but a lot of native plants need 3060 or 90 days of cold before they'll germinate.

22:13

Once the seeds have germinated, we pot them up into bigger pots and then stewards take those potted up plants home and care for them on their driveway or in their backyard until they are established enough that they can be cared for on a site in the ravine.

22:31

And what that really means is, well Tina, you know what native plant is very efficient with its water once it's established.

But in getting established, if we have a heat wave and a real dry spell, they really need to be watered at least a couple of times a week, maybe every second day.

22:48

And I'm telling you as a 71 year old lady, it's a lot of work to carry enough water to keep the native plants going.

We're, we're lugging 4 liter water bottles up and down the hills this year.

Our stewards at Sherwood, we had a coffee party last month and we started a whole bunch of plants from seed ourselves.

23:08

And we have a committed group of people who are doing some winter sewing and we'll have have seedlings for Sherwood and we'll have seedlings to share with other sites as well in the spring.

That's awesome.

OK, let's bring the conversation back to our own gardens.

23:24

Home gardeners, we now understand that many invasives are still sold in nurseries, right to home gardeners.

And they, they are things like mulberries and periwinkle and English Ivy like you mentioned.

And, and they can easily escape into the ravines and cause lots of work for Toronto nature stewards.

23:43

So I've heard so many gardeners say, oh, they're not invasive in my yard.

I don't live close to the ravine.

I keep them contained.

What do you think about that as a land steward?

Well, I think a lot of people live closer to the ravine than they might realize.

23:59

Oh, I'd really encourage people to look their house up on Google Maps and look and see because there could be a ravine behind houses 3 streets over.

And you don't really know they're there if you don't have walking access.

But the seeds from your plants will get there because my east and groundhogs will carry them around.

24:18

And mostly it's the birds.

So birds eat the seed and then they fly into the ravine and they poop the seed out.

And there you have it.

A new plant is growing on my street.

I have a ravine at the end of my street.

I don't have access to it because it's it's behind other houses, but I've often stood on my Rd. in a real rainstorm and thought all those Norway Maple keys that have fallen and landed in the ditch or beside the gutter, they're all getting washed down the street and the storm sewer releases them all into the ravine.

24:51

So carrying seeds by water is really a way that that these plants get around and lots of our water ends up in the ravine.

Yeah.

And of course, lots of seats are borne by the wind.

So if we think of something like dog strangling vine, when those little, they look like a a little twisty green bean is what their seed pot looks like.

25:13

And when it opens up, they're actually related to milkweed.

Each seed has that little tough of little white hairy on it and the the wind carries them.

Yeah.

I made it a little sorry, Pat.

I made a short list of what gardeners can do.

Tell me what you think about this.

25:30

I think we need to learn which plants are invasive in your area and it avoid adding them to your garden.

So, you know, no one's adding giant hogweed to their garden, but somebody might go to their garden centre in May next month and purchase some English Ivy.

25:46

And, you know, I think that's just education right around that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And.

And what about seed packets?

What about those seed packets that say, create a wildflower Meadow, plant these, and then you look at the back of it and it doesn't tell you what's in it.

26:02

Would you plant those?

No, I wouldn't because wildflower does not mean native plant.

So I think those wildflower packs are full of things that germinate easily and grow for a year, and for the most part they're not native.

So I think if you want want to do something for the environment, grow a native plant and avoid anything labeled wildflower.

26:22

And I think you need to inspect your property for invasive plants that might come from other sources, other places, and just have a visual of what garlic mustard looks like.

It was another plant that would just unsuspectedly show up in your garden and take hold.

26:40

Before you knew it, you weren't tending your garden.

Tina sometimes they're the woody plants.

So sometimes they're the, the mulberries or the the burning Bush or the Norway Maple.

Now, you know, the part of the city I live in, we have a lot of houses that have an old garage in the backyard.

26:59

And if you had squirrels putting Norway Maple seeds behind your garage or along your fence line, you don't even know they're there until they're several feet tall.

And you might think it's a, a tree that you want to have there.

But I think property owners should really walk their yard, particularly the fence line, and identify the plants that are there.

27:21

That a Norway Maple is easy because you break a leaf off and if you see that white SAP that looks like school glue, it's a Norway Maple.

Do yourself a favor and get it out.

You know, you've got all kinds of tips like that.

I remember in the fall a couple of years ago, you told me now is the time to go out and look for Buckthorn.

27:40

And I think what was it?

Was it October or was it November?

You told me to do that and tell our listeners about that.

Well, buckthorn holds on to its leaves longer than any other shrub in the fall, so if you have a shrub that still bright green in November, you have buckthorn.

27:56

So it's another one to get to get.

Out right and you told me about hand pulling them.

If they're still small, that's the easiest time to get them out.

When they get a little bit woodier and deeper rooted.

You need your fancy tool that you meant me.

28:11

The extractor Gator was a fantastic tool.

So I have a little bit of a forest edge where I am in Richmond Hill, and I went in there and extracted probably, oh, I don't know, 100 little.

They were probably about 3 feet tall.

28:28

But that extracted Gator was fantastic.

And then I said to you, now what do I do with all of these?

Do I kind of leave them to lie in the forest?

And that's the other tip I think gardeners need to know is how to properly dispose of invasive plants.

28:44

So what's your comment about that in terms of disposal?

Well, the safest thing to do is to send it to landfill to put it in your garbage.

And if you don't know anything about how the plant propagates, you're probably best to do that.

But if you, if you do a little bit of research, you can leave the non reproductive parts of the plant in your own garden or your own yard and they won't do any harm.

29:09

They'll decompose, they'll create a habitat for insects and and soil organisms.

But you should take the reproductive plant parts.

And by that I mean a bloom that's within days of becoming a seed head or a dried seed head or roots of a plant.

29:26

If it's a plant that can propagate via its roots and those ones, you can either put them in a black garbage bag and leave them in the sun for a couple of weeks until they solarize and they dry out and it's dead for sure, or put those ones in the garbage as well.

29:44

But the last thing you want to do is be spreading seed by putting it in your garden waste bag and having it go to become compost.

Last time I checked, the city was still not wanting invasive plants in garden waste bags because it's hard for them to be certain that the composting process heats the seeds to a high enough temperature to keep them from ever germinating.

30:11

So to be on the safe side, those things go in the garbage.

Before I let you go I just want to talk about some resources and my favorite resource for home gardeners is the Grow Me Instead of pamphlet, which I hear has been refreshed and should have some new life and hopefully new copies floating around.

30:29

But there is a PDF which I'll put in the episode notes.

That's a great little booklet because you can take it to the garden centre with you and it'll tell you exactly what native plant to buy instead of a non-native which could be invasive.

30:45

Just a little note here, not all non natives are invasive and we're not saying that.

We're saying that you have to know which non natives are invasive in your area.

Ask your local nursery people, but get a hold of this grow me instead and bring it with you and being informed gardener when you're, you know, going out there and spending your money and putting new plants in your garden.

31:10

I would say ask your local nursery if you're at a native plant nursery.

If you're at your local plant store or big box store, they're not reliable in telling you what's invasive because they still are selling English Ivy and the goat weed and burning Bush Tina.

31:30

I love that roaming instead as well because it really puts the focus on the most important of the invasive plants.

And I think that could be great together with a walk around your yard because it might help you to identify.

31:46

Lots of us have things in our yards that we didn't plant.

You know, the previous homeowner planted.

And for instance, when I moved into this house, we had the most beautiful burning Bush, turned a beautiful bright red in the fall.

But when I found that it was invasive, we dug it out.

32:04

We replaced it with the native shrub that turns a beautiful bright red colour in the fall.

So I'm not saying anybody needs to change their whole yard in a year, but if you have an opportunity to remove one invasive plant a year and plant something native or at least non invasive, then you could do that part for the environment.

32:24

It just really feels so rewarding to me that there's something we can do in our own yards to to improve the environment that we all live in.

OK, now I am going to let you go eventually, but not until you tell us your favorite online native plant store and your favorite native plant store to visit.

32:43

And I know you're in the city, so there you go.

You tell us.

First, let's start with you online.

Favorite place to buy plants?

Ontario native plants and they're online orders open I.

I haven't checked this year, but usually it's March 1st and I, if you order in the first couple of days, then you get your plant shipped very early in the year.

33:06

If you order in April, you might get sort of their second growing.

One more other word of advice, because this happened to me last year when I put my order in, there was one client that came up saying that it would not be shipped until, I don't know, sometime in June and I should have taken that off my order so that I would get all my other plants earlier.

33:26

So just something to check.

If you have one species that's a delayed delivery, you might think twice about it.

So that's my favorite online source.

They're grown locally in, you know, southern Ontario.

Very ethical grower and it's just Tina.

33:42

It's just such a great day when that box shows up on your front porch.

They ship everything in a cardboard box and you open it up and they're just fabulous plants.

Before you go on to your nursery to visit, and I think I've mentioned this before in another episode, but they you can also get a notification if something is sold out for their next round.

34:03

So and they literally get back to you and send you an e-mail and say, hey, the whatever is back in stock.

Do you still want to order it now so that they're fantastic and the plants grew up in such good shape.

OK, so best place to go visit in the city or outside city?

34:19

Well.

I'm going to have two ones in the city, ones outside the city, and you can't stop me.

My favorite outside the city is Claremont Native Plants.

And I love to go there because I love to talk to the people who work there because they're all native plant nerds and because they give such fabulous advice.

34:37

And they're the kind of people who say, well, if you're interested in that, have you thought about this as well?

Because they really know their growing conditions.

But my word of advice on that one is make yourself a cup of coffee and get your plant book out and come with the list.

34:53

Because you know, Tina, you and I are used to this.

But when you go to that native plant nursery, the plants are all about four inches tall and they're green and nothing's blooming.

And we look at them and fall in love because we know how they're going to look at the end of the next year.

35:10

Masses of blooms.

And that's just the way native plants are.

So do your research before you go.

Otherwise, I just get so confused while I'm there and then I leave without something that I absolutely needed.

And then my favorite native plant source in the city is the Toronto Plant Market on Bering Ave. in Etobicoke.

35:31

They don't grow, but they collect from native plant growers who are all ethical growers growing from seed in Southern Ontario.

And they're connected with everybody else and they have a a really wide variety of plants there.

35:46

And it's not as far as driving out to Claremont, OK.

Those are great recommendations.

OK, so lastly, if I want to join a group of Toronto Nature stewards, how do I do that?

OK, good point.

We have a website, it's Toronto Nature stewards dot.

36:04

Putting in the episode notes, don't worry.

OK, thank.

You, you think it's one of those things, my computer knows it and my brain doesn't.

And you'll find a tab there about how to get involved.

And you can look at a list of the sites, pick something that's close to you or close to where you work or easy for you to get to.

36:21

And if you send for information now, you'll get that for sites will be starting anytime now.

So really good time to to think about getting involved.

With that, can you give your recommendation if someone just wants to start looking up some invasive species online?

36:37

I know I I use the Toronto Master Gardeners site.

I would go to Ontario Invasive Plant Council, OIP.

I'll put that.

In the they are Ontario based and they have all kinds of information about how to identify and and remove.

36:56

Awesome.

Well, thanks again Pat, Love having you on and good luck in the ravine.

OK.

Thank you so much, Tina.

Thanks for the opportunity.