One of the goals of LEAF’s Urban Forest Demonstration Gardens is to show passers-by the beauty of native plants and to inspire others to create and care for native gardens in their own neighbourhoods and backyards. Our Garden Stewards dream of a city rich in beauty and diversity, with butterfly, bee and bird habitat galore!
This year, LEAF’s team of Stewards saw an opportunity to enhance the gardens as educational tools. By creating hand-made plant identification signage, passers-by could easily learn the names of the species that captured their attention.
Brian, a proactive Steward at LEAF’s High Park garden, created charming stakes made from salvaged wood with help of his teammate Rui. They labeled over 20 different species in their garden.
“I enjoy getting my hands dirty working in the High Park Subway Garden. Every time I am working in the garden, several people passing by comment on how wonderful the garden looks, how nice it is to have it there, how appreciative they are of the volunteers and their neighbourhood spirit. Some have even mentioned how they like that the plants are labeled (my favourite, of course).”
- Brian, High Park Garden Steward
After placing the signs in the High Park garden, Brian graciously volunteered to create enough stakes to label ALL the plants in ALL of LEAF’s Demonstration Gardens for next year!! We are so grateful for this awesome contribution -- we can’t wait for the spring to install the rest of the stakes and see the Demonstration Gardens full of greater learning potential.
Many thanks to Brian and all of our amazing Garden Stewards who continue to work so hard to keep our gardens lush and beautiful.
Erin MacDonald is LEAF’s Volunteer and Stewardship Coordinator.
Interested in joining a stewardship team in 2015? Sign up to become a LEAF volunteer today!