Green Team is not afraid to get their hands dirty

Bryan Dewalt

The Sandy Hill Green Team is a volunteer group that takes a hands-on approach to expanding and enhancing public greenspace in Sandy Hill. As spring gives way to summer, the Green Team is well into its field season, managing several projects in the neighbourhood.

The oldest initiative of the Green Team is a series of garden beds and planters along Somerset Street East that were established as a “depaving” project in 2016. In addition to cleaning and weeding these plantings, we are undertaking a full rehabilitation of the beds beside and in front of the Quickie at Somerset and Russell. As part of this work, we are putting in more native plant species, which attract beneficial insects and the birds that feed on them, thus helping to restore food webs that have been disrupted by urbanization.

We are also continuing our work to restore biodiversity in the woodland along the Rideau River between Strathcona Park and Mann Avenue. Since 2021, with funding from a variety of grants, Green Team volunteers have worked hard to control invasive plants on public land along the riverbank and upland slopes, with particular focus on Japanese knotweed and common buckthorn. An important part of this biodiversity restoration is to plant a range of native trees, shrubs and perennials to outcompete the alien plants and provide food and shelter for native fauna.

This spring we were excited to see most of our plantings from last fall leaf out successfully. If you are walking along the river, you can identify these trees and shrubs by their blue flagging tape. This year our target will again be common buckthorn, and its cousin, glossy buckthorn, and we are expanding our project area as far north as the Adàwe Crossing and along the southern edge of the baseball diamond. We will also be returning to sites where we have been controlling Japanese knotweed to remove regrowth and continue to weaken their tenacious root systems.

Both these projects incorporate native perennials raised by Green Team volunteers as part of the “Replacing the Grass” project. Over the winter and spring volunteers germinated and potted hundreds of wildflower seeds. Many of these plants were sold at our native plant sale before the annual general meeting of Action Sandy Hill on May 29. The remainder are being planted in our projects along the Rideau River or on Somerset Street.

Finally, this year the Sandy Hill Green Team will be supporting Carefor, the organization that has created the pollinator garden in the circular bed just north of the parking lot in Strathcona Park. We will be assisting with weeding, watering and planting.

The Green Team holds twice monthly work sessions on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month. To align with people’s varied schedules, this year we are alternating between evening sessions and daytime sessions. Certain projects might also involve weekend work, but nothing has been scheduled for this season yet.

If you happen to be out on a Thursday, watch for us in our stylish new Sandy Hill Green Team T-shirts. You might even be inspired to join us. Whether you enjoy grubbing out buckthorn, planting trees, starting seeds or tending planters and garden beds, there is something for all tastes and abilities. If you would like to help out, please email bdewalt.ash@gmail.com.