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

Today: Send an e-mail, plant a tree…

November 19, 2010
Diageo employee planting native wild ginger into cultivated leaf mold plots at Jericho Beach Park

Just another day at the office (Photo: Laura Smit)

Evergreen BC’s corporate volunteers work hard, in and out of the office.  The following groups dedicated time, money and effort toward restoring nature in Vancouver this year, giving our urban forest (and our stewardship groups) a huge boost!

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Comments Off | Events, In the Field, Native Species, Stewardship and Planting, Vancouver, Volunteer | Permalink
Posted by Laura from Common Grounds Vancouver

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

School Ground Greening Grant Applications for 2010/2011 Now Available!

August 18, 2010

Students using their outdoor classroom at Cassandra PS, Toronto. (Photo: Cam Collyer)

With summer almost behind us (*sniff*) and September fast approaching, let’s look to the school year ahead. Have you been giving some thought to your school ground? Does it need a little green?

The Toyota Evergreen Learning Grounds grant applications are now available online and will be accepted starting September 7. We are excited to say that we have been offering this program with Toyota’s support for over a decade! Since 2000, the Toyota Evergreen Learning Grounds program has distributed $2.1 million to over 1,700 schools across Canada. In 2009/2010 alone, we awarded $260,000 in grants to 158 schools.

Join the hundreds of schools across Canada who have taken part in this program and start filling out your application today!

For more information on deadlines, eligibility and to access your application, click here.

Comments Off | Funding, Green Tips, School Ground Greening, Toronto, Transformations, Vancouver | Permalink
Posted by Sarah from Learning Grounds

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

Rare Opportunity for Local Stewards

August 11, 2010

Super Elite Task Force: Operation Port Coquitlam (Photo: Evergreen)

Last Thursday, a super elite team of Evergreen’s stewardship volunteers put in some of their evening time to help a federally red-listed species in Port Coquitlam – streambank lupine (Lupinis rivularis).

“This is the most work anyone has done for the plant,” said a thankful Species at Risk Recovery Team member, Dawn Hanna. Volunteers worked slowly and deliberately on the urban site, careful not to step on or disturb the lupines, of which there are only 300 known individuals in Canada.  Hopefully, by protecting this and other populations, that number will increase in years to come.

This is the first of three work parties to protect rare populations of streambank lupine this summer (there are only 8 known locations in Canada – all of which are found in the Lower Mainland)

For more information or to get involved in the project, contact Laura Smit, Stewardship Co-ordinator at lsmit@evergreen.ca or 604-689-0776

Comments Off | In the Field, Issues, Native Species, Stewardship and Planting, Vancouver | Permalink
Posted by Laura from Common Grounds Vancouver

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