Ecotones

03/23/2022

🙏🌱🌳🌲🌼🌻🐝🌾

For some time, enlightened gardeners have grown away from contained, stiffly regimented beds organized around lawns in favor of free-form swaths of native plants, pollinators once considered weeds, grasses and wildflower meadows.

03/06/2021

For more than a decade, large polluting corporations (including the fossil fuel, agribusiness, and transportation industries) and financial brokers have tried to convince us that corporate and government-controlled “carbon credits” or “cap and trade” schemes can be a major solution to the cl...

02/14/2021

Heads up for local seed sharing 🙏❤🌱

We are so excited to announce Seedy Saturday 2021! Things will look very different this year but we believe it is important to get locally saved seeds out the the gardeners of Winnipeg. We will be updating this page as plans solidify. For additional information check out our new site at https://gardensmanitoba.com/seedysaturday/

01/01/2021

Happy New Year 🎊🏵🌺🌼🌱🌿🌳... may we bring more health to this world and eachother with every bloom, seed and moment opened 🙏🦋🐛 🙏❤🌅

06/10/2020

I know many of you have lovely native and non-native pollinator gardens or woodlands along your gorgeous properties... go show Matt some love and lets help support this much needed and overdue change 🙏🏻🌱🌻🐝

MOTION: REMOVE PERMIT REQUIREMENT FOR CLOVER AND OTHER ALTERNATIVE PLANT SPECIES ON CITY BOULEVARDS

Today at Riel Community Committee I moved a motion calling on the city to eliminate regulatory barriers to planting clover and other diverse, low impact plant species on City of Winnipeg boulevards. Presently, only turf ‘kentucky blue grass’ AKA “grass” is allowed without getting a permit. There are many other suitable plant species that can fill the role of grass, some of which (such as clover) have positive environmental impacts by helping bees and other pollinators. Either way, I don’t see it as necessary for the City of Winnipeg to regulate what species of turf plant residents can seed on the boulevards they are responsible for maintaining.

Thank you to Southdale resident Jennifer Young for bringing this issue to my attention.

See the text of the motion below:
Neighbourhood Liveability By-law 1/2008 – Permitting Additional Plant Species on Private Property-adjacent Boulevards

WHEREAS homeowners wishing to sow plant species on city boulevards are required to obtain a permit to maintain any species other than turf grass, as per Section 89(3) of the Neighbourhood Liveability By-law 1/2008;

AND WHEREAS a more diverse urban ecosystem has positive impacts on the environment;

AND WHEREAS homeowners are expected to maintain boulevards, and therefore ought to be granted additional freedoms and leeway in how they maintain boulevards adjacent to private property;

AND WHEREAS pollinator species such as clover provide positives insect species such as bees;

AND WHEREAS regulating what type of similar-looking plant species should not be a priority for the Public Service;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Riel Community Committee recommend to the Standing Policy Committee on Protection, Community Services and Parks that the Winnipeg Public Service be directed to report back with a report outlining the feasibility of amending Section 89(3) of the Neighbourhood Liveability By-law 1/2008 to permit additional plant species, such as clover, to be planted on boulevards adjacent to private property without requiring a permit.

06/10/2020

FYI ochids have specific symbiotic fungal relationships with their root systems in order to survive... and often very habitat-specific pollinators. Without those conditions and the habitat as a whole maintained, the system breaks down and it's not as simple as chopping out some plants and moving them.

We can't undo taking out rhe refuges of rare and endangered species and the other community assemblages represented in one pretty little flower... but we can change where the houses or parking lots go.

❤🙏🏻🌱🌻🐝

Save Brandon's Endangered Small White Lady's-Slippers

06/01/2020

Some checking in on last season's transplants... Here's a beautiful in the making... just needs a little more time and warm. 🌱🌿🌳🙏🏻💧💦🌊✨

06/01/2020

If you haven't seen the old articles from Covet on our faves and why... have a read: pgs 74 on. 🌱🌳🌻🐝🌼🌺🐞🐜🌿🐛🦋

Covet is a design and lifestyle publication from Winnipeg, Canada. Our mission is to provide inspired, beautiful design and amazing local talent, spaces and places to our readers.

05/02/2020

Workin' on it 😁🌱🌻🐝... who's in?

Whelan says we can make a small difference by thinking about our food sources.

04/22/2020

Happy Earth Day... There are so many amazing opportunities to learn virtually right now (I know some of us would love to be side by side on a community garden project or cleaning up a school with the kids... but let's use this as a learning experience and go with it... 🙏🏻❤🌱).

Here's a great resource for all of us as we sort through our seeds... share and learn.

https://freeshowing.secretingredientsmovie.com/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=065c888d-7709-4103-9518-026adc0fb3b7&cookieUUID=13ed08cf-784a-4663-b7bd-df1af9a8e074

A heads up that I'm making up my organic, saved seed care packets, and I'll pop in a simple garden design for a few raised beds too so those who have never tried growing their own food can have a decent head start.

With the weather we've had being so cold, I honestly haven't felt like going through and starting my own yet... but will by the end of this week.

I'm thinking I can do some small balcony set ups too (when we do our urban habitat work, I save the big 10 gallon black pots 😂🌱... so if all you have is a sunny balcony or little deck... maybe that's a better plan?! 😁).

If you don't have the funds, do have the funds but not the mental space for where to start right now... all good 🥴🤒... don't let that stop you🙏🏻❤🌱... I would like to give priority to those who really need the help... a garden can be the difference between access to clean food and none.

Please don't be shy... let's get our kids and ourselves some clean food... and

Send me a DM or comment below if you're local and would like a little seed and garden starter kit... and I'll figure out how to drop 'em off or have ready for a pick up next week.

The Free Screening is Now Over If you missed it, head over to secretingredientsmovie.com to find out how to watch. And, if you want to learn more about how to make the changes in your life recommended in the film… We’ve got some ideas… Make a Change Now!

04/21/2020

Awe 🙏🏻❤🌱...

The Icelandic Forestry Service is encouraging people to hug trees while social distancing measures prevent them from hugging other people, RÚV reports. Forest rangers in the Hallormsstaður National Forest in East Iceland have been diligently clearing snow-covered paths to ensure that locals can en...