Invasive Species Removal at Peter Grant Park in Sidney, June 3, 2023!
The Greater Victoria Green Team spent the day engaging 17 community members from all over the Greater Victoria region to remove invasive English ivy and English holly in the Town of Sidney’s Peter Grant Park! This was our 4th visit to this location. We will be visiting this park again in the fall to remove more invasive plants before helping run the Town of Sidney’s Tree Day celebration, planting 100’s of native trees with the community!
Group Photo!
Highlights
- In total 17 community members participated and contributed a total of 50 volunteer hours!
- We removed 9 cubic metres of invasive plants and revitalized about 95 square metres of the forest!
- 9 community members were introduced to this location for the very first time!
- 4 people learned about and removed invasive plants for the very first time!
- This activity took place during the first day of Make A Difference Week, a part of the Vancouver Island Decade on Ecosystem Restoration initiative
THANK YOU
Thank you to everyone for participating: Stephanie, Asher, Lok, Chiming, Yvonne, Kai, Andrew, Riley, Christopher, Becca, Leny, Claudette, Tsuyoshi, Randolph, Rocco, and Cliff!
Thank-you very much to the Town of Sidney for partnering with us and contributing to our Green Team activities! Thank you for recognizing the importance of collaboration in community engagement and ecological restoration!
Invasive species like English Ivy, English holly, and daphne laurel have been crowding and shading out the native understory and threatening the trees growing in this park. Ivy can smother trees by competing with them for nutrients and light, which makes the trees weaker and more susceptible to fall. This is the Greater Victoria Green Team’s 3rd visit to Peter Grant Park, and the difference we’ve made is truly inspiring! Native species like Trailing Blackberry, Indigenous rose, and salmon berry are starting to grow in places that used to be covered in ivy.
Equally inspiring is seeing just how many people come out to tackle invasive species in this forest! Community members of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds came together on Sunday to connect with each other and with nature. It is truly amazing to see so many people working together towards a goal, all while having fun and making new friends!
Before… and After!
Community members enjoyed some tasty fresh-baked scones donated from Sidney Scones!
Thank you Chelsey for donating some delicious refreshments for our hardworking community members! We love Sidney Scones!
One lucky community member got to take home a gift card for Sidney Scones as well!
By being out in nature doing something positive as a team, our community members:
- Develop a sense of belonging to community and place
- Have improved mental and physical health
- Connect to nature, which leads to environmentally responsible behaviour
- Learn about local environmental issues and actions they can take
- Learn the value of bringing together people to work towards a common goal
- Become leaders in their communities
- Increase confidence, resilience and perseverance
Volunteer Testimonials
“I enjoyed having the opportunity to get out in nature and connect with other people, along with the ability to gather official experience doing volunteer work for an official organization..”
Riley
“It was nice to have a sense of stewardship for a park I enjoy visiting. We have a stronger sense of belonging in our natural surroundings when we have opportunities to involve ourselves in the maintenance of ecosystems.”
Stephanie
“I definitely enjoyed the workout and the scones after the workout.”
Volunteer
“When you see a hill full of invasive English ivy, you know someone has to do something. I’m just proud to be one of the ‘someones'”.
Chiming
Community In Action!
The support from the community and the Town of Sidney was so wonderful! The mayor of Sidney, Cliff McNeil Smith, joined us to pull some invasive English ivy!
Shout out to the Town of Sidney parks staff, Clay, for helping us out at this activity!
Some of the native plants that are returning to this forest were blooming and fruiting during our visit to the park! The plant species we saw were (in order of appearance) salmon berry, Indigenous rose, and red osier dogwood.
Thank you to the fantastic local eco-friendly businesses Gathering Place Trading, Sirene Chocolate, Kicking Horse Coffee and Tru Earth that donated In-kind products for our hard-working community members to take home!
Our community members took home a thank you gift from one of our in-kind supporters! If you have any suggestions for sustainable/eco-friendly rewards, know of or own a business who would like to provide in-kind to our Green Team, please contact Kaitlin at kaitlin@greenteamscanada.ca
We were featured in the Peninsula News Review! Click here to view the article by Natasha Baldin, Black Press Media
