Meet Vic: A Veteran Volunteer

December 2, 2010
Cheerful Vic after a day of pulling periwinkle from Mahon Park (Photo: Evergreen)

Cheerful Vic after a day of pulling periwinkle from Mahon Park (Photo: Evergreen)

Vic is without a doubt one of our longest running volunteers. He initially took part in tree planting events in Toronto many years ago when Evergreen had just established itself as a non-profit. After retiring from the financial services industry, Vic moved to Vancouver where Evergreen convinced him to get involved in our Mahon Park Stewardship Project in North Vancouver, which had just begun working in the community in 2003. He has been coming out month after month, rain or shine, ever since.

What do you like about volunteering in Mahon Park? The project managers have consistently provided strong, knowledgeable leadership. And the stewardship work takes place in a relaxed, fun setting. It’s also great to have a sense of participating in something with meaningful impact at the local level.

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Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

The Fruitful Project of 2011: Great Northern Way Community Orchard

November 24, 2010
Evergreen will be taking inspiration from the Union Street Urban Orchard, an innvoative urban orchard that ran in London, England, in 2010.

Pallets and Things at the Union Street Urban Orchard (Photo: Quite Peculiar on Flickr). Evergreen will be taking inspiration from this innovative and temporary orchard in London, England.

With a successful fall season behind us, Evergreen is busy working on crafting some new and exciting projects for 2011. One that we’re all particularly excited about is an urban orchard to be located in Vancouver’s False Creek Flats.

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Comments Off | Food, Issues, Stewardship and Planting, Transformations, Vancouver | Permalink
Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

Jen Alderson and Sean Aldcroft – Taking it Out on Scotch Broom

October 27, 2010
Jen Alderson and Sean Aldcroft (Photo: Sean Aldcroft)

Jen Alderson and Sean Aldcroft (Photo: Sean Aldcroft)

Jen Alderson and Sean Aldcroft have been steady stewardship volunteers for Evergreen’s Iona Beach Regional Park Working Group, working hard to restore sensitive dune habitats every third Saturday of the month. They’ve also been active in our super elite task force project, protecting what is left of the streambank lupine colonies remaining in the Lower Mainland.

Why do they volunteer to green their city? Jen and Sean get tremendous satisfaction out of getting involved and being connected to the local habitat. There’s a real sense of ownership to clean out invasive species taking over our regional parks! Plus a weed wrench is a great way to get out latent aggression.

Their highlight of volunteering with Evergreen? Both said their ongoing highlight of volunteering with Evergreen has been efficiently doing away with what seems like acres of invasive Scotch broom at Iona Beach Regional Park. There’s a strange satisfaction in uprooting Scotch Broom that is taller than you are!

What about their other lives? Sean is the elementary school teacher parents either hope or fear their child will receive and Jen works to improve the environmental footprint of YVR.

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Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

Vine Maple: a Native Tree We Love

October 22, 2010
Vibrant leaves of a vine maple in the fall. (Photo: Copyright Kevin deBoer Copyright @ E-Flora BC)

Vibrant leaves of a vine maple in the fall. (Photo: Copyright Kevin deBoer Copyright @ E-Flora BC)

Purple, pink or cream flowers adorn the branches of the vine maple in the spring, only to make way for vibrant leaves in the fall. Acer circinatum, as it is scientifically known, is a small species of maple tree, growing to only 7 meters in height in most cases. Native to western North America, including British Columbia, vine maples have been used in variety of traditional ways by Coastal Aboriginal people. For example, the flexible branches were often used for framing fishing nets, snowshoes and cradles, and the bark of the roots were also used to make tea for colds.

Preferring moist and shaded environments, vine maples are often part of the forest understory in many urban parks and elsewhere in the province and look stunning in both the front and backyards of urban homes. Keep a look out for their bright red leaves this fall and the flower clusters that will replace them in the spring.

Lean more about vine maples and other native trees from Evergreen’s Native Plant Database.

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Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

Watch Our Video and Jack Johnson’s Charity Will Donate $1 Per View!

October 13, 2010

 

Evergreen and Jack Johnson at the Village Green

Evergreen staff Adrien, Allison and Andrew (l. to r.) with Jack Johnson at the Village Green (photo: Evergreen)

 

Music lovers at heart, Evergreen was thrilled to recently participate in Jack Johnson’s All At Once Village Green, designed to engage fans with the work of local environmental not-for-profits. As part of our fundraising initiative at the concert, we raffled off a surfboard, snowboard and autographed guitar to three lucky concert-goers and raised $2,130 of our $2,500 fundraising goal!

The Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation will be matching every dollar raised by Evergreen before October 16, 2010, up to $2,500. With your help, we can raise the remaining $370 of our fundraising goal, allowing us to bring people together to make our communities better places to live. All you need to do is watch our 2010 Non-Profit Video, and the Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation will donate $1 per complete viewing. Time is running out!

A special thanks to Hugh Nichols, West Coast Music, Thriller Shop and Ark Surfboards for their generous donation of time and raffle items!

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Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

Community Gardening and the Law of Supply and Demand

August 19, 2010

A lush community garden plot. (Photo: Evergreen)

Over the past three years, the number of community gardens in Vancouver has more than doubled, yet the wait lists show no signs of getting any shorter. Green thumbs rose to the City’s challenge of creating 2,010 gardens by 2010 to serve as a legacy of the recent Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. Despite this huge increase in availability, Andrew Pask of the City’s Social Policy Division, estimates that the wait list for garden plots across the city is “at least in the thousands.”

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2 Comments | Gardening, In the Field, Issues, Vancouver | Permalink
Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

Canada Goldenrod: A Native Plant We Love

August 15, 2010
Dense yellow flowers of Canada goldenrod. (Photo: Copyright (c) by Al Schneider. Southwest Colorado Wildflowers. USAD @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database)

Dense yellow flowers of Canada goldenrod. (Photo: Copyright (c) by Al Schneider. Southwest Colorado Wildflowers. USAD @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database)

Commonly known as Canada goldenrod, Solidago canadensis is a perennial herb that blooms from July to October with dense yellow flowers. As a drought tolerant plant, it enjoys sandy soils and lots of sun, and when it’s happy can grow to a meter and a half tall. It is native to most of Canada, and can be found in meadows, woodlands and roadsides, predominantly at low to middle elevations.

It gains its name “solidago” as it was believed to have medicinal qualities; solidus meaning “whole” and ago meaning “to make,” referencing that it could “make whole again.” The plant can be used to make tea, and was a popular alternative to costly English tea during the American Revolution.

Learn more about Canada goldenrod and other native wildflowers from Evergreen’s Native Plant Database.

4 Comments | Native Species, Vancouver | Permalink
Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

The Intern Learns to Compost

August 5, 2010

Summer intern Max Nichols and the drum composter. (Photo: Evergreen)

A note from one of our summer interns, Max Nichols:

As one of Evergreen Vancouver’s summer students working inside the office, most of the requests that come my way are pretty straightforward: file this, sort those and write that. But no tasks proved anywhere near as complex as “can you figure out how to work the composter?”

Pardon? Last time I checked you put organic material in the top and get rich soil out of the bottom.

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2 Comments | Gardening, In the Field, Vancouver | Permalink
Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

Busy Parents are Greening their City

June 28, 2010

L: Julie making stepping stones (Photo: Allison Houser) R: Lori in character as Queen Bee (Photo: Jaime Kowal Photography)

Despite being busy parents of children who attend Simon Fraser Elementary School, Lori Weidenhammer, Julie Sawatsky and Michelle Weeks still find time to green their city. The school has a garden plot at the Vancouver City Hall Community Garden, and these women are using the space to connect children, parents and teachers with their environment.
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Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

Site Transformation: Vancouver City Hall Community Garden

June 25, 2010

T: Garden under construction, June 2009 B: Garden in bloom, August 2009 (Photos: John Shinnick)

It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since the Vancouver City Hall Community Garden was first opened on July 20, 2009. Over the year, I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in some of its milestones – there have been many!

The below photos provide just a glimpse of some of the highlights made possible through the hard work of the community gardeners and volunteers.

Community gardeners tending and harvesting their plot, August 2009. (Photo: John Shinnick)

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Comments Off | Gardening, Transformations, Vancouver | Permalink
Posted by Allison from Evergreen British Columbia

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