Volunteers continue to spruce up stretches of asphalt on Sandy Hill streets. Want to help?

In September 2016, many Sandy Hill residents, with the support of the City of Ottawa, came together to transform patches of asphalt along Somerset Street East into gardens of trees, shrubs, and perennials. Since then, as described in a December 2024 IMAGE article, “The ups and downs of depaving projects in Sandy Hill” (found in the online IMAGE archives at www.imagesandyhill.org), the gardens have faced challenges, including the placement of garbage bins on a bed and the razing of plants in front of the Quickie. In addition, the gardens included plants and shrubs for which there are preferable alternatives that are non-invasive and better for pollinators.

Discussions about how best to fix these issues have taken place at the Action Sandy Hill (ASH) Environment Committee. A grant was sought from the City of Ottawa’s Community Environmental Project Grant Program. The application was successful, and money was received in late summer.

There were limited options at the Quickie for the placement of the garbage bins, let alone concealment, in keeping with municipal by-laws. To help address this, ASH, with the help of the Sandy Hill Green Team, used the grant money to purchase large planters to partially hide the bins. Money from the grant was also used to renovate and restore the garden beds along Somerset. Some plants, such as barberry, have been replaced now by native flowering shrubs and perennials, and fresh soil and mulch have been added. The gardens have been improved, and while there have been setbacks, the planters are sprucing up the Quickie site.

More work is planned before the funding for the project ends in June 2026.

People interested in helping with these gardens or other tubs and planters in Sandy Hill or offering other suggestions can email sandyhilltreegroup@gmail.com

— Marilyn Whitaker