Stanley Park Ecology Society News

A great time was had by all at the Winter Party to end 2009, after a wonderful year of volunteerism, with fun and games and awards. Many thanks to our sponsors!

Fall is upon us which means the flowering season is almost over although both pearly everlasting, and Douglas’ aster are late-blooming perennials still giving colour.

However, there is still more colour around when you find some of the beautiful berries in the garden: scarlet bunchberry, luscious salal, Oregon grape and currants, cascading pearls on the false Solomon’s-seal, and multi-hued berries on the Hooker’s fairybells.

The plants producing their seeds in the form of berries or small nuts have them attractively packaged for birds and animals. Those plants using the wind for distribution, have seeds either with wings or fluffy appendages such as the vine maple with its winged "helicopter" seeds and the Douglas’ aster with its fluffy seedheads.

Here in the West we don’t get the spectacular bright fall foliage colors that Eastern Canada has, because we don’t have the temperature differences between day and night. But look for the Saskatoon. Its leaves will turn a beautiful peachy/orange colour with gorgeous markings. Other leaves offer up soft yellows and coppers.

Fall garden activities will be pruning, cleaning up, seed saving, and mulching.

Wilma Mosmans and Jill Taylor, SPES Native Garden Stewards

Hooker’s fairybells
Photo by Jill Taylor

Mahonia berries
Photo by Jill Taylor

False Solomon’s seal with berries
Photo by Jill Taylor

A bee enjoying the Douglas’ aster
Photo by Jill Taylor

Baldhip rose hips
Photo by Jill Taylor

Pearly everlasting
Photo by Jill Taylor

-Wilma Mosmans, SPES volunteer Garden Steward

SPES volunteers maintain the Stanley Park Native Plant Demonstration Garden, which is located between the end of Robson Street and the tennis courts, and shares the area with the West End Community Garden.  The Garden is divided up into 2 long beds and 2 round beds (as illustrated in the native garden brochure available in the Nature House).

"…May is ‘the’ flowering month, especially for the groundcovers and bushes that need to flower before being shaded out by trees in full leaf.  Look for: Pacific bleeding heart, redwood sorrel, and Siberian miner’s lettuce.  Compare the flowers of: false Solomon’s-seal , star-flowered false Solomon’s-seal, and Hooker’s fairbells.  The black twinberry, which belong to the honeysuckle family, have started flowering.  Last year hummingbirds were seen visiting them throughout the summer for their nectar…

….You may also notice a new mason bee condo (kudos to Dave, its builder and SPES volunteer).  These native bees are shiny black with iridescent blue/green backs, and don’t look at all like a honey bee or bumble bee.  They are extremely important as pollinators, and emerge when orchards are blooming and day time temperatures are at 12-14 degrees.  This year they were late coming out of the "woodworks" (they nest in tree cavities) due to the cold temperatures…

…Flowers to look for in June:

• broad-leaved stonecrop - a groundcover succulent with yellow flowers
• common camas - has blue flowers
• goat’s beard - dies back every winter, and grows to the size of a bush in spring.  You can easily spot its white flowers in clearings and at the forest edge
• bunchberry or dwarf dogwood - a groundcover with dogwood type flowers

…"

The Stanley Park Native Plant Demonstration Garden is located near the tennis courts near the southeast corner of Lost Lagoon at the foot of Robson Street. It partially surrounds the West End Community Garden plots.

During the winter months most of the native plants have been dormant, protected by a leaf mulch layer. Now spring is in the air, the nights are shorter, temperatures are slowly rising, and the plants are starting to come up again. Early plants, such as skunk cabbage are peeking out.

The SPES Volunteer Garden Stewards have begun partially removing the mulch layer (there is still the danger of frost), have pruned those bushes that needed thinning, and will soon be labelling the newly-emerged plants.

On February 16 the first bud opened on Ribes sangineum (red-flowering currant) an early blooming shrub. Its clusters of brightly coloured tubular flowers are an important early nectar source for hummingbirds.

February 20, 2008
Wilma Mosmans, SPES Native Garden Steward

The Stanley Park Ecology Society is offering an exciting volunteer opportunity for 8 secondary school students to earn volunteer hours for an intensive, 4 day period over March break. Through participation in this program, student volunteers will work in teams to gain valuable professional experience working in both outdoor and office settings.

For details see the Volunteer Opportunities section

SPES is currently looking for volunteers for:

• Special Events
• GPS/monitoring
• GIS/mapping
• Nature House hosts
• Bird counts
• Ivy Busters
• Ivy Team leaders

See the Volunteer Opportunities section for more details…

Volunteers who are members of Face Book can now join the SPES group site. Our group has the catchy name ‘ it’s not a pine cone it’s a hemlock cone.’ Join us to see the latest news, postings etc.