TreeWatchVictoria

UVIC has until now been an arboreal and botanical showcase, just by being itself

2012-02-12T16:26:00.000-08:00

Top: Leafy trees screen and soften appearance of looming buildings
Bottom: Soothing effect of water outside the McPherson Library; mature trees looking on

One of our best repositories of interesting trees is the UVIC campus, but there, as everywhere in the CRD, the trees are being deleted and crowded out in the name of development. The campus, as it celebrates in 2012 its 50th anniversary, has already tilted toward the condition of being overbuilt. The original "modernist" layout of the grounds within the ring road - straight edges and stark borders where concrete walkways met grassy open areas -- has been marvellously softened over five decades by the presence of trees. Many have grown into splendid individual specimens, and their combined bright yellow-orange colours in autumn light up the campus - a heady joy to observe.

How bizarre to read in an article by Robert Amos in the Times Colonist ("Exhibit details the evolution of a city" Feb. 11/12) that original campus designer and Public Works employee Alan Hodgson says UVIC was built on "barren land, really barren." Many of us who grew up in the 1960's and rode horses at Carley's Stables across the road from the campus, remember those woods and meadows as anything but "barren." They were enchantment, a Sherwood Forest of trails and fields to gallop across, winding routes along the ravine down to Cadboro Bay where we galloped on the sand. In the early years of constructing the university, the woods, meadows and orchards which it was quickly eradicating were still navigable on horseback (along with what is now the Henderson Golf Course on the other side of Cedar Hill Cross Road), despite the fact that a sudden turn might lead to a paved sidewalk, a building in the distance, a network of ditches with boards spread over them for access by workers and machines.

So the rural character of the area was destroyed, but the "garden campus," as campuses go (and remembering that the word "campus" is Latin for "field") was an attractively landscaped one. Those of us who once rode across its woods and meadows, when we grew up to attend classes could still enjoy picnicing on the grass, lying in the sun, admiring the fall colours, lolling around the Petch Fountain, exclaiming over the fabulous floral displays in the garden at the south entrance to the Ring Road (created before all gardens had to be "native"). How extraordinary then to read that this same Hodgson laments that people on campus do "walking which is not under cover"! That is exactly what we have always valued: air, movement, space, gracious and stately trees all round us. We have already lost the charming presence of rabbits, and how else could people of a certain persuasion enjoy the 420 Club? The tragedy is that the air, spaciousness and treescape are increasingly intruded upon by more and more overbearing buildings.

Why can institutions never be satisfied without having to grow incessantly? What would UVIC's ideal size be, its "Goldilocks zone"? Where is the University President who will be satisfied not to have presided over endless building and growth, but rather over preservation and restraint? A scholarly campus should be conducive to thought, meditative walking, quiet gathering for conversation. Nothing furthers such pursuits like the surrounding context of nature, on one of her clement days, of which luckily we get a majority in our climate. Further building at UVIC will only diminish its arboreal beauty, and probably its 50th birthday will one day be looked back on as already marking the decline after the campus's most elegant era.

B. Julian

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Cut trees down for backyard housing?

2012-02-09T19:45:00.000-08:00

"Laneway infill," "backyard rental housing" ... these are ways of squeezing more people into urban space. But after they do, where's the space? We're all on top of each other, which is bad enough (ever heard of the overcrowded lab rat studies?) but even worse is the fate of the trees that used to be there. How many people who want to make room for a revenue-creating rental hut in their back yard, will get rid of the trees that used to live there? Will it matter if said trees are scarce or heritage varieties? Will home-owners get permits to eliminate trees anyway?

The municipal heritage tree protection measures are very shaky to begin with. Somebody says a branch might fall on my roof, or a fungus has taken up residence in the bark (which a fungus is supposed to do ... trees co-exist with other lifeforms and are indeed a "platform" for numerous species, but arborists hired to get rid of trees ignore this). So what chance does the tree have? And this despite the fact that every municipality plus the provincial jurisdiction claims to be concerned about climate change.

BULLETIN: THE MAIN CURE FOR GLOBAL WARMING IS TREE COVER! It is not biking, it is not "getting people out of their cars," IT IS THE OXYGENATING AND CARBON-ABSORBING ROLE OF TREES.

How does this backyard paving project sit with the erstwhile "urban forest master plan"? Is there still an urban forest master plan?

Will upcoming Official Community Plans include tree protection?

2012-01-08T10:39:00.000-08:00

Top: people admiring a tree on the Oak Bay High School grounds
Below: large wooded gardens like this one keep neighbourhoods ecologically healthy

When we speak up for trees, they will stand up for us: they oxygenate our air and absorb carbon in our cities, they make our lives more liveable - what are we doing to preserve theirs? Most municipalities say they are crafting new Official Community Plans in 2012 - now is the time to make sure the urban forest is not left out of these plans. (Whatever happened to Victoria's Urban Forest Master Plan anyway, on which so much public money was spent for consultation? The public who were consulted came out overwhelmingly in favour of tree conservation, yet paving and development continues apace. Is there a master plan?)

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Animating society: a little imagination makes room for urban wildlife and retired livestock

2012-01-05T13:29:00.000-08:00

A dog and a deer filled the local press this week -- they were acting like a couple of animals.

So: that's that news. It started another spate of quotes from politicians darkly muttering about a deer "cull" because "people" have asked for one -- yet the people who have done so amount to a tiny percentage of those living in the CRD.

It is time to think outside the box on this, or maybe to think like the British do in the New Forest. There they have 200 square miles set aside for wild ponies, who munch and crunch their way around the houses and roads that also criss-cross the 200 acres of woods, pasture and villages. The people co-exist with the animals, and the tourists and campers are drawn to them as a feature. Ten "verderers" with a staff of "agisters" monitor the animals and the landscape, and it is hard to see why we could not do the same with our deer, rabbit, squirrel and raccoon populations in the CRD. They even include free range pigs in the New Forest, who are allotted time every fall for "pannaging" - foraging for acorns which are not good for the wild ponies (and which are only slightly used up by the squirrels and blue jays).

What is required is that some land is left for trees and grassland in the first place. We could secure that for our deer, and verderers to guide them into the right areas. The benefit is for humanity as well: deer or no deer we also need nature in our surroundings, for mental health, outdoor exercise space, aesthetic pleasure, and for the carbon-sinking, shading effects of treescapes. Trees and woodland creatures go together, and a city is only enhanced by leaving generous space for both. It's being done elsewhere - this is not an impossible dream.

Since people are willing to erect high fences to keep deer out of their gardens, maybe others are willing to use fencing to keep them in (augmenting the park space we should assign for them). Adopt a deer family? Better than being complicit in the suffering accompanying their slaughter by traps and lethal bolts. And when it comes to adopting, why stop at deer?

As of January 1, 2012, England has gone battery cage-free in the poultry business, and the British Hen Welfare Trust re-homes retired laying hens, who would normally be slaughtered while still young. We too need to house retired farm animals (have we not just seen the atrocious situation of the old gelding starved for a year and then hanged on a farm in Saanich?); could we not be a little more imaginative in our space-sharing with the animals around us?

In the same way we have a garbage dump and a common water source, a municipality should have a retired-working-animal facility, as a normal part of being civilized. Politicians are led by the people by whom they want to be re-elected, so it is up to us to come up with the solutions to both animal issues and the problem of dwindling greenspace.

The Unreason of the Season: Christmas and the orgy of plastic purchasing

2011-12-22T20:20:00.000-08:00

There has been much argument about whether global warming is caused by industry and human behaviour, or by the natural rhythms of nature, but the ecological tragedy of the Great Pacific Plastic Gyre (or Garbage Patch) is undoubtedly a wholly human creation. A gyre of plastic and plastic particles revolves in the Pacific Ocean, destroying the lives of myriad birds and other marine creatures (as big as Texas? as big as Hawaii? estimates depend on the size of plastic debris you are looking at), and it originates in our stores and houses. Plastics are the main products of the petro-chemical industry, which is considered to be the source of global warming. Every time you buy anything in a bubble wrap, anything (from candy to pet food) in a plasticized pouch, any plastic toys, rakes, ladders, shelving, boothbrush, razor, bowls, media equipment ... you are enabling climate change and chemical pollution. The Pacific Oean plastic garbage patch originates, for one example, in those big plastic Santas and snowmen that presently sit in people's front yards. (Remember when a Christmas tree and one string of lights was considered enough?)

Isn't it paradoxical that many people purchase plastic life-sized lit-up deer for their Christmas displays, yet also call for the killing of the real thing? Will we one day have emptied our neighbourhoods of all wildlife, only to live among replicas of what we have lost?

Here's a good Christmas ritual: refuse the plastic monstrosities (if you have already bought them, unfortunately there is no way to get rid of them: they were made in labs, not in nature, and nature cannot process them through her cycles of growth and decay); instead take greens to the freezing deer who live in the parks and green spaces around you. And rejoice: the divine has been incarnated once again, in all the beautiful animals and trees we live among.

Big trees mitigate climate change, and big trees need big spaces

2011-12-21T17:10:00.000-08:00

Top: Large mature trees hold carbon in their tissues. 2:Recently green space in Fairfield/Gonzales, now sacrificed to development. 3:carbon-holding tissue. 4 and 5: Big gnarled and abused old monarch in danger, Rockland area.

Some local politicians and mayors have said that despite the Harper government's non-signing of the Kyoto agreement, policies against global warming can be pursued at the municipal level. Let's hope they remember that that would entail first and foremost, massive tree replacement. Tree removal is a much bigger cause of global warming than is the transportation sector, and there is a danger that an uninformed public will be lulled into thinking that if politicians promote public transport, we're being virtuously "green" and can forget about Earth's tree cover.

This is irrational, but when something is repeated often enough people believe it without examining the facts. The boreal forest of Canada and Russia is the best carbon sink on the planet, but urban tree cover also plays a part, due to the fact that the sprawling paved "heat islands" called cities contribute most to climate change. If local mayors are serious about mitigating climate change at the local level, they will have to change the patterns of development and beef up greenspace preservation policies radically. The biggest trees do the best job of carbon absorption, naturally enough; the smaller trees that often replace them whenever someone deems one "sick" or "dangerous" (which is code for inconvenient, to someone) do not do as good a job. The row planted at Vic High, for example, to replace those destroyed this year during construction, will especially in their young years do a lot less for the atmosphere than their predecessors did.

Big trees need big spaces; houses packed closely together lead to much more global warming than cars do, and both are a result of uncontrolled population growth in already-crowded areas.

Victoria please keep Dallas Road commercialism-free!

2011-11-30T11:26:00.000-08:00

Dallas Road Shoreline:

Do we really want to spoil this view and this ambience with shops and restaurants? Do we want our signature shoreline along Dallas Road to look like White Rock's waterfront -- all shops and parking meters? Our waterfront from Ogden Point to Clover Point and round the corner along Ross Bay has long been a beautiful combination of park and residential space. We are so lucky to have a marine component to our municipal parks, why spoil it by allowing business "attractions" to blight it? Neither parkland nor residential areas are improved by the insertion of commercialism.

Along the Dallas Road cliffs parents and tots, joggers, dog walkers, kite-flyers and seniors with canes all enjoy the view of the Olympics, the sea-light colours and the antics of dogs at play. They enjoy these things as they should be enjoyed -- on foot (and if they get tired, there are plenty of benches). Life is too sedentary these days, and too commercialized. Let us leave some alternatives.

It has been suggested in a recent letter to the Times Colonist that Clover Point is in need of a restaurant. Clover Point is prime urban bird-watching, seal-watching and (at low tide) tidepool exploring area. Many seniors drive down there, park their cars and get out their sandwiches while they quietly contemplate the view, as generations have done before them - can't we just leave them in peace? How would the scene be enhanced by the crush of restaurant delivery trucks, garish signage and dumpsters? How would that be for the residents living across the road on Dallas? Mixed-use commercial/residential does not appeal to most people. If commercial enterprises can go everywhere, where do we get away from them? Let our urban shoreline be one non-profiteering haven.

What is "conservation" to Conservation Voters of BC?

2011-11-16T14:57:00.000-08:00

Here is a message I sent to the Conservation Voters of BC. I have not heard a single candidate bring up the conservation of trees and the urban forest as an issue in municipal elections on Vancouver Island, when they are asked by media outlets what they stand for. Am I missing someone? Let me know if you know of any pro-nature candidate out there.

Dear Conservation Voters of BC,
Re. your endorsements of "environmental champions":
I am surprised at the names you have selected from Victoria and Oak Bay. Some of these are past councillors who have hitherto shown no interest in preserving landscape, the urban forest, farmland, wildlife habitat or heritage gardens, and have indeed recommended dense building and paving in and around Victoria and Oak Bay. What is "environmentalism" once it drifts loose from nature itself?
SB Julian,
Treewatch Victoria

No animal slaughter in our gardens please

2011-11-08T12:39:00.000-08:00

Standing on guard for backyard animal interests

The municipalities are talking about allowing miniature goats on residential lots, to go with the chickens who grace many backyards. Goats yield milk and perform splendid gardening services (cropping grass and clearing out undergrowth, just as chickens are great compost-shredders), as well as making amusing pets. However, within the bylaw that permits them, we have to prohibit slaughtering them. We have to be clear from the outset, if we are to have agricultural animals on our properties that they are now pets, and protected by the same cruelty legislation as are cats and dogs.

One thing we do not desire is backyard slaughter operations popping up in our neighbourhoods and next to our playgrounds: blood on the ground, howls, axe-chops and butchery. (Don't laugh - it's been a problem in many European towns.) We don't want any grey areas with this one, 100-mile-diet-inspired or otherwise. (As we have just seen: it's much easier to ward off a conflict of use at the outset, than to dislodge an "occupying" practice once it has taken root.)

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Don't shoot, just feed

2011-11-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

Photos by Linda Foubister

These pictures illustrate a sane response to the presence of deer in our gardens. This beautiful natural-style garden in south Oak Bay, nestled against the northeast base of Gonzales Hill, is much visited by wildlife. Friends of the owner, Marion Cumming, came up with a way to make room for everybody: thin, roped-together pieces of local driftwood create frames on which invisible netting is fitted to protect vegetable and flower beds, a technique which is attractive, natural and affordable.

The frame in the bottom photo looks like a large hockey goal, but is not meant for a version of "he shoots, he scores" such as the town of Cranbrook favours for deer control. Some want the CRD to employ the same cruelty: a deer is tangled in a net, possibly for hours of panic and injury, before being sloppily stunned by a bolt gun (the type used in slaughterhouses - one reason why so many of us are vegetarians).

Winter is cruel enough to wildlife, whether in natural forest or suburbia: they suffer frost-hard ground, cold air, snow cover and little to eat. Some nature-lovers pity birds in winter and put out feeders. Once the feeders are out that is where the birds will be found. We could do the same with deer: put feeders in the areas where we want them confined (e.g. away from roads). Keep wooded corridors preserved throughout the city, linking up the feeding stations. Tree cover and the urban forest are best for humanity as well, if air cleansing, pollution reduction, wind buffers, shaded streets and gardens in summer heat, and visual aesthetics are worth having.

It is interesting, how what is best for the human population is best for the nonhuman population as well. No ugly slaughter, murder and mayhem needed in the neighbourhoods ...

BJ

Interspecies Friendships Thriving in Saanich - re. deer kill

2011-10-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

Post by C. McClarnon:

Why do politicians feel pressured to choose violence as a primary choice in dealing with wildlife issues? Violent methods (such as culls) traumatise the many decent people who live in our communities, including children. AND, many of the decent people who positively enrich our communities, commune deeply with nature and develop close spiritual INDIVIDUAL bonds and friendships with wildlife who visit their properties or pass by in their communities. (Indeed, many of these beautiful creatures are given names and are recognized as individuals).

These social interspecies bonds are an important part of the mental health and well-being, and indeed core life values, of many people in our communities. What happens to a person when his or her friends are murdered? Indeed, for some people (including many elderly people), their relationships with their animal friends give meaning to their lives in a way that this commercial, economic, greed-based insanity cannot.

Please think about these social traumatisations carefully when dealing with the question of culling! There can be no denying that interspecies individual friendships are thriving in Saanich, and no person (politician or otherwise) has any self-proclaimed rights to murder another person's friends (human or other), or the right to deny that person to commune with nature. This kind of gruesomeness renders a deep ugliness to a community.

-- Christine McClarnon

Tree Conservation Areas, and "Trees' Right To Live" - legal tools we lack in Greater Victoria

2011-10-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

From the BBC News Science and Nature Forum:

"The tree's right to live should be recognised and it should be allowed to live until it is proved it cannot do so without a clear and demonstrable, quantifiable, danger."

-- Christopher Mathews, Cheselbourne, Dorset

"... in Frinton we have managed to prevent this rape of the environment by imposing a large tree conservation area. Would strongly recommend that people get tree conservation orders on all the trees they value. It really works and here regularly prevents developers destroying trees for profit!"

-- David Evans, Frinton-on-Sea, U.K.

Would it work here in Greater Victoria? It's municipal election time, so now is the time to ask would-be councillors what they think of this tool - unless it's the developers they are there to represent? Certainly trees are being hacked down every day all over the region which still have 100 years of life left in them. For some people they are in the way, for others they are "trees which they value." Many people feel in a constant state of mourning for old friends removed one after another to make way for building or clearing. Which group do local Councils represent?

Mayor's Grove (they thought they were planting in the City of Gardens)

2011-10-10T11:37:00.000-07:00

According to the City of Victoria sign in Beacon Hill Park, the Mayor's Grove was established in 1927 when Mayor J.C. Pendray conceived the idea of a tree planting ceremony for the delegates to the Western Mayor Convention. In subsequent years several other mayors had turned the sod and added their signature trees to the meadow.

There are now 31 trees. In 1929, Winston Churchill planted a hawthorn. As you can see, it is not in great shape. Many people attended a ceremony at the tree after Churchill died on December 30, 1965.

-- Linda Foubister

TW: Judging from the look of the ground, the tree appears to be trying to survive in a desert. Dying for water? Result of water restriction policies? Mayors used to plant in "the city of gardens", now it's "brown town." How sad that cricket fields can have water but gardens can't.

Fiddle-heading while Saanich builds? (re. Saanich's ISMS Open House)

2011-10-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

Might it be that Saanich has gone a bit overboard with its anti-invasive-species mania? Yes, there are certain specific noxious weeds which must be rooted out before they spread too aggressively, but whenever bureaucrats speak about the invasive species plan one hears a mounting drumbeat in the background hysterically condemning any gardening that is not "native" based. There is a prudish denunciation of colour, exoticism, variety and individual creativity in the private garden, as if these things indicated the worst, most morally loose and frivolous behaviour this side of the Victorian age.

Have we forgotten that Nature never stays still? that all species change their range, that all have migrated from somewhere sometime since terrestrial plants spread around the globe as terrain and climate changed over the eons? Shall we ban the potato (native to South America)? the apple (native to the Ural mountains)? all the seeds exchanged in the heyday of garden collaboration between Europe and the New World that followed on the great ages of ship-based exploration? That trade gave birth to the plant nursery business, a trade that has always been healthy in these parts. Now officials want to "reach out" to nurseries who dare to stock non-native plants.

Whatever happened to freedom of choice in gardening? The drab style (let's not pretend native plants are vibrant past the moment of their modest bloom) is just not to every gardener's taste. Some might want to begin with begonia, continue with chrysanth, dally with dahlia, delight in delphinium, run riot with rhodos ... and that is their business.

Invasion Biology: Critique of a Pseudoscience, by David Theodoropoulos, which discusses the naturally dynamic nature of plant population is a tart corrective to a narrow nativism. What we should be worrying about is pavement-creep and overbuilding, not bad plants. Maybe in the face of things we cannot or will not come to terms with, we over-react to minor issues that seem more manageable? Could invasion-battling be classic displacement behaviour?

If so, we are applying it to "bad" animals in an even more censorious way. From recent reports, you would think that whenever someone sees a deer they have seen a Triceratops. Feeding deer, according to Saanich's website, is bad because it might "enhance winter survival". Well, yeah ... we sure hope so ... (unless people prefer living with a population of starving freezing suffering bone-racks ... because live with them we now do, humanely or otherwise.)

There is also something on the Saanich website very ominous for pet cats: "there has been an identification of the need for cat control to be added to the Animal Control Bylaw by Saanich residents." Identification how? by whom? which residents? Not the ones who care about their cats' wellbeing, that's for sure. Cats are roamers, free spirits, garden sprites, and at least as "native" in these parts as is humanity. So if some people want only snowberry in their gardens, that is their business, but they don't have the right to spoil others' pleasure in watching their cats stretch out in the sun on the rose bed.

B. Julian

Preserve Your Lawn

2011-09-11T09:15:00.001-07:00

There is a difference between country soil and city dirt. "Country" is where plants grow, water collects, biotic communities teem in soil. Cities are where people might compact soil with foot traffic or pave it or leave it unwatered to degrade into desert sifted through with blowing dust and pollution particles. It is essential that householders and gardeners keep soil covered with growth (lawn or meadow) and keep it watered, so as to keep the biotic communities (root fungi, amoeba, slime molds) alive to break down bacteria (using other bacteria) into chemical components -- the molecules and amino acids that feed plants, trees, insects, worms, birds ...

Grass cover protects soil from compaction and allows air as well as water to permeate soil around the microbe-rich rootlets. The mass of moist fungoid tangle under grass is a life-factory, the base of the terrestrial food chain. To starve it of water is to deaden the city ecosystem: policies of water restriction on garden use are deeply anti-ecological. From the Baltimore Long Term Ecological Study:

"In addition to nutrient cycling, microorganisms carry out other functions that are important at micro, ecosystem, landscape, and global scales. These functions include the production of a variety of "trace gases" (carbon dioxide - CO2, nitrous oxide - N2O, methane - CH4) that influence the chemistry and physics of the atmosphere, processing water, soil, and air pollutants, and maintenance of the physical structure of the soil." It is up to gardeners in cities to maintain these cycles and functions, and to demand sufficient space be left out of urban "development" in order to preserve life-processes.

By a lawn we may mean a stretch of grass anywhere between a putting green and a wild prairie. Somewhere along the spectrum is groundcover appropriate for urban green space. It has been said that a meadow is nature's Piccadilly Circus (everybody will turn up there eventually). So for householders who want a variety of grasses, bee-attracting clover, mini-daisies and other wildflowers, a mini-meadow watered for life and periodically mown, is ideal. Dead grass means dead soil, without the machinery of life. Desert-like ground cannot support trees: look around at our browning hedges and groves. Consider the birds: to birds, "trees are insect cafes, resting spots, and sentry posts." (this quote from Hannah Holmes' wonderful book, Suburban Safari: A Year on the Lawn)

So what is the ideal proportion of green cover to paved area in a residential/commercial urban community? Has anyone calculated this for Greater Victoria? If not, how can we devise the best zoning regime to regulate development? We are working with blindfolds on, allowing adhoc, commerce-based building. We have lost our vibrant green boulevards due to a policy of water-starvation; they have become sad windblown strips of death. When was the last park created to protect space for life-processes in town? Where is the zoning against excessive subdivision of private space for infill building? How would we measure "excessive" and what would be the ideal? The answer needs to be based on ecological literacy. How ecologically-literate are most municipal councillors?

BJ

The nature-rich school yard

2011-09-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

Premier Christy Clark has just announced $8 million for upgrading school playgrounds -- wouldn't it be wonderful if "upgrades" meant not more plastic climbing things and swinging things, but a wider vision of what the grounds for children's play could involve? What if schools were to sponsor nature-based play? That would mean playing in meadows and woods, among bird feeders, tiny fish ponds and low labyrinths created by interesting varied shrubs. What if schools used their grounds not just for recess and sports (and for standing about shivering until it's time to go back in, which anyone has seen who has ever done playground supervision in schools), but for displaying urban/suburban plants, animals, and micro-ecosystems? For tracking and counting migrating and local birds and nests? For creating monarch butterfly waystations to help those beleaguered beings not go extinct? For planting new groves of trees and noticing what wildlife they attract -- the squirrels and blue jays that bury the acorns, the hawks that watch for baby squirrels, the lichen that creep along the branches, the insects that hide in the lichen? The wildflowers that grow in a long-grass mini-meadow, and the specimens students could find to look at under microscopes in the classroom. Think of what they could learn from outdoor thermometers and sundials, and from going out with collecting jars, sketching equipment and notebooks?

Some schools possess nothing but a playing field and blank flat concrete surrounded with a chainlink fence. As housing densifies and new parks fail to be created by municipalities, school yards become an ever-more significant portion of total urban green space. They should not be wasted by being black-topped. Much recent research also tells us (see Child and Nature Alliance: www.childnature.ca) that time spent in natural settings makes children more relaxed, focussed, refreshed for classroom learning. No urban space is a completely "natural" setting, but schools could do a lot better in becoming oases of green space in a too-concrete, too-artificial and indoor world. The Evergreen Foundation (www.evergreen.ca) has a "School Ground Greening" section which offers lots of tips and even funding to individual schools.

The BC Teachers Federation has pronounced the premier's focus on playgrounds "myopic," but in fact it could be the start of something big, something transformative both to landscapes and to kids' recreational lives, if only they could shift the emphasize from monkey bars to the benefits of nature-play.

B. Julian
(B. Julian is author of Childhood Pastorale: Children, Nature, and the Preservation of Landscape, available from local bookstores and libraries)

Keep Buildings Lower than the Treetops!

2011-08-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

Sadly, there's not a chance of that - not when a city has once got the "biggering" bug (remember Dr. Seuss's The Lorax?), i.e. not when it yearns to be a hot hip urban centre just like the ones next to it. There was an interesting interview on CBC's On The Island today, about the growing population of seagulls that nest on top of downtown buildings, seeing them as good substitutes for the bare rock islands along the shoreline that are their natural habitat. Were those roof heat islands overshadowed by tree canopies as buildings were a few decades ago, when we still had height restrictions, the problem of bird-poop-covered streets and windows would not arise (or rather, descend).

It is amazing just how hot those concrete-covered heat islands get, both at and above ground level. A comparison study was available at this weekend's Bowker Creek Brush-Up in Oak Bay: artists with tables set up in the sun were sweltering, while those only a few feet away in the shade of trees were putting on their sweaters. That's how powerful the effects of mature shade trees are on the liveability of a place, for wildlife as well as for humans. Imagine how the town would feel in summer with none of those trees.

The gulls seem to like the heat-radiating roofs but the denizens of Bowker Creek wouldn't like them at all: art lovers strolling along the creek were treated to dispays of mother ducks squawking loudly when two otters swam near the half-grown young, before slipping out of the water and nipping into the grassy undergrowth behind the creekbank. We're so lucky still to have vestiges of wildlife in the city, and to have folks like the Bowker Creek Initiative who work to keep the creek healthy.

What Councils Decide to Permit

2011-08-07T10:15:00.000-07:00

Photo: A sad row of stumps. Goodbye hedge.
Above: Heritage-designated cottage cleared for development. Goodbye trees.

It cannot be by chance that the sudden rush on requests to local municipal councils for road closures for block parties coincides with the ever-increasing demand for development variance permits. As municipal councils accede to requests to dodge existing building regulations (enacted in the first place to protect neighbourhoods' green and visually pleasing characteristics), setbacks are reduced, paving increased, and gardens lost. Where once families valued their garden space for recreation and socializing, they now have to rely on using streets for parties and children's play space.

Streets, however, are meant for cars to get us where we're going. Squeezing people out of private space and into public space already under multi-use pressure, is a symptom of overcrowding and a recipe for conflict.

Reading various municipal council minutes, one notes along with applications for development variance, a plethora of noise and loss-of-privacy complaints. To protect the values of quiet and privacy, as well as the benefits of greenspace, municipalites will have to do something currently neglected: develop clear policies to mitigate overcrowding and overbuilding. They will have to scale down on "variances".

But it sometimes seems they don't want clear policy; at present they try to please everybody (those who want building and those who want conservation, those who want quiet privacy and those who want street carnivals) -- hence the regime of muddy, adhoc policy-making. As we get closer to election time, expect councillors all to be in favour of everything. Gardens will not protect themselves, however. We read some rather comical angst-ridden handwringing exchanges in various Councils' minutes, about saving particular trees (save the 100 year old wall, or the arbutus next to it? but is the arbutus "hurting" the oak beside it? who to consult? should we hire an arborist ...? table it to a committee for further study ...) And so it goes, when we fail to lift our eyes to the big picture and design policy that protects green landscape in general. In pockets, it dies, but with continuous corridors of greenspace around us, we all have a higher quality of life.

Grass Is Life

2011-07-31T10:08:00.000-07:00

Bottom: Grass Is Life
Top 2: these gorgeously blooming chestnut trees were planted by the visionary urban plantsmen of the past

What is today's philosophy of city landscape design? Sadly, officialdom seems to congratulate itself on letting everything shrivel up and die. "Capital Region Water Use Down" announces an article in the local paper. Although the Sooke reservoir is 98% full in mid-July this year, gardens are dying. Boulevards once green are now dusty tracks of scrub. Our urban forest is aging; how will new rows of boulevard monarchs ever take root?

The reservoir is full partly because this year's cool summer means less water use for recreational purposes. So why doesn't the CRD regularly restrict this "recreational use" and encourage garden watering? After all, healthy gardens conserve water (plants and roots harbour water). The alternative is dead soil devoid of microbial or insect life: no rich earthy smells or food for the songbird population. You won't see any birds on the expanse of hot gravel in the photo above, which is a style of gardening resulting from "Stage 1 (water restriction) ... the status quo now." Just what are we saving water for, if we kill off the natural world around us?

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The case of the vanishing tree

2011-07-19T15:36:00.000-07:00

Top: a wonderful small front yard on Rudlin Street: tree-filled -- by a single tree! Next week: tree gone. What happened here?

Actually it's a case not of one mature monarch, but of the whole urban forest vanishing, under pressure from dense development, drought, and the direction of municipal funds away from maintenance of greenspace.

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Downtown Swallows Neighbourhoods

2011-07-19T15:20:00.000-07:00

Photo-story of what happened to one bit of greenspace -- this was lower Richardson, where downtown density eats at Fairfield. Goodbye trees.

The City of Victoria talks a lot about "food security" (urban gardening) -- so why not purchase private lots like this one was, to make space in clearings under surrounding trees for allotment gardens? It makes a lot more sense than growing food on boulevards, which should be reserved for shade trees. Who wants to eat food at tailpipe level, where who knows what passers-by (human and animal) have done who knows what among the crops?

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Trees will do all they can to survive

2011-07-01T17:59:00.001-07:00

It is amazing how a brutalized tree will struggle to survive - look at these examples of trees hacked and pruned. Their response is to send out new long branches or suckers when they still can.

(Top: on the grounds of Oak Bay High School. Below: on Fernwood Road)

"The sight of a topped tree is offensive to many people. The freshly sawed-off tree limbs are reminiscent of arm or leg amputations. And the freshly-sawed look is just the beginning of the eyesore; the worst is yet to come, as the tree re-grows a witch's broom of ugly, straight suckers and sprouts.
Arborists consider the topping of some trees a criminal act, since a tree's 90-year achievement of natural beauty can be destroyed in a couple of hours." -- from Plant Amnesty.

Plant Amnesty is a Seattle organization working "to end the senseless torture and mutilitation of trees and shrubs," and to urge educated pruning, as well as retention of urban spaces large enough for trees to reach glorious natural maturity of size.

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Camosun College grounds a gracious setting

2011-06-26T09:32:00.000-07:00

(Photos May 2011)
Camosun College's Lansdowne Campus displays a calm beauty on spring evenings in the sun: here is a spectacular mature oak and a line of tree-guardians along the central approach. Note the leaves growing on the west side of the trunks in response to light from the waxing afternoon sun at this time of year.

Although out of favour the lawns as part of the physical setting undeniably add an air of grace and gravitas to the academic enterprise (remembering also that "campus" means field in Latin -- the literal field of learning is an orderly attractive one here).

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Garden Houses Threaten Wilderness

2011-06-26T08:37:00.000-07:00

The decision of Victoria City Council to permit paving of gardens for wedging in small houses is bad news for trees and urban greenspace. It accelerates the transformation of the city from green to grey, the urban land surface from living to paved. It means children grow up in a deader, bleaker environment. Where will they play, with the demise of the back yard? It is not as if the City is buying more park space to make up for loss of private greenspace.

Yet most people want their kids to grow up in a green leafy environment, and most understand that spacious tree-filled surroundings are better for their own physical and mental health as well. That is why densification within cities fuels the desire to escape to more open, meadow-like, large properties in fresh tree-cleansed air beyond the city -- a desire met by realtors and developers like Ender Ilkay whose lands along the Juan de Fuca Trail are being offered to those longing for a summer or permanent home nestled among trails in the woods.

Environmentalists deplore the incursion of residential settlements in the bush outside of towns, but nothing makes it more inevitable than turning towns into crowded overbuilt heat islands. That is what happened in England in the 1890's: after the railways came, people could escape London and other city cores for a cottage in a leafy valley, thus filling up the latter with new commuter villages. As long as population grows this progression seems inevitable. To prevent the exodus City Councils must zone urban land to protect large green areas (keeping "nearby nature" within cities) -- the exact opposite of what they are doing when they promote increased density.

Oak Monarch

2011-05-29T11:14:00.000-07:00

Photo by Sharon Brown

Sharon Brown shares this image of a magnificent oak being admired on Heron Street.

Under a new project in Oak Bay spearheaded by writer and tree conservationist Terri Hunter, people are invited to record in photographs their favourite trees, thus building a shared portfolio of new "significant" and "heritage" trees for the municipality. The inventory of established significant trees is dwindling in the face of destruction and development; a new inventory needs to be built up so as to retain Oak Bay's leafy character.

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The land use choice for cities: greenspace or densification?

2011-05-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

The top photo shows Island Road in Oak Bay, the bottom photo is around the bend on the same road. They show the land use choice facing every municipality in the CRD as they craft their next OCPs: density, or the preservation of "nearby nature" in urban areas.

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Trees Without Woods

2011-05-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

Half the trees owned by the City of Victoria live outside of parks, mostly on boulevards and traffic medians, according the Parks Department which looks after them. That means a large percentage live in conditions where construction, lack of space, and foot, road and bike traffic cramp their growth and health. As a result Victoria is turning to "Silva Cell technology", which uses "an underground frame that can bear traffic loads and offers freely rootable space that allows urban trees to grow into large and beautiful specimens" (this description from greenmax.eu).

Silva Cell technology permits an integrated tree and stormwater underground system that holds unlimited amounts of soil while supporting traffic loads beneath paving and hardscapes. "The healthy soil housed within the Silva Cell serves two important functions: growing large trees and treating stormwater onsite" (environetwork.ca). The "hardscape" in the photo above is a sidewalk on Cook Street where tree roots have disrupted the pavement.

This planting technology helps sustain a canopy and the benefits of air cleansing, shading and carbon absorption that trees perform in cities. In other words, it allows for trees without woods, and we can only hope it won't become a politicans' excuse for not bothering with maintaining and extending park space. It doesn't solve the problem of increasing spread of "hardscape" in the first place.

Residents' Rights to the Preservation of Neighbourhoods (re. Destruction of "Blair Gowie" at 2031 Runnymede)

2011-04-17T20:58:00.000-07:00

Oak Bay’s "Town Hall Meeting" of April 12th (was) the result of a public protest on March 21st concerning governance: governance which should be transparent, would respect the Official Community Plan and Heritage principles, which would put the interests of the majority over private interests, and which would cherish and preserve Oak Bay’s unique character and beauty.

The Oak Bay public is divided on some issues, but so far they all agree that Heritage properties should not be sub-divided and thus lost to future generations.

The objective of Oak Bay by-laws and the Heritage Conservation Act is to preserve architecturally significant buildings, their gardens and landscaping features which represent the built heritage of the municipality for this generation and those to follow.

It therefore came as a shock when we learned from the Oak Bay News, October 15th 2010, that this Municipal Council is giving favourable consideration to a developer’s application to subdivide the heritage garden at 2031 Runnymede also known as Blair Gowie.

Since June of last year, there has been a series of meetings between this Council and the developers Bruce Wilkin and Ann Hillyer to consider a Heritage Alteration permit and subsequent sub-division of the Heritage garden of this property.

This led to the motion which was carried on October 2010 “that the potential sub-division of 2031 Runnymede be supported in principle subject to acceptable terms and conditions”. Since then numerous letters of objection and a petition signed by 36 Oak Bay residents opposing this proposed sub-division were sent to the Mayor and all the Councillors. None of these have been replied to.

On October 20th 2010 a letter of intent to buy 2031 Runnymede without any conditions and with commitment to renovate both the house and the garden was sent to the Mayor and all the Councillors. It remains un-answered.

It should be noted that the arrangement with the developers occurred without advertising the house for sale and without putting up a for-sale sign. Other buyers may well have been interested in purchasing this house without a change of Heritage status.

On February 20th 2011, another petition signed by over 40 Oak Bay residents was sent to the Mayor and all the Councilors. No replies have been received. On the morning of March 21st 2011, over 50 Oak Bay residents demonstrated in front of the Municipal Hall and visited Mayor Causton at his office. This demonstration, which was the first ever in the history of Oak Bay, resulted in (the April 12th) meeting (ar which) finally after six months of attempts to address these concerns I would like to ask the following questions:

--- Why an application for a Heritage Alteration Permit and subdivision of 2031 Runnymede was not rejected on the grounds that insufficient attempts had been made to find a buyer who would purchase this beautiful property and value it as a Heritage jewel of Oak Bay.
--- Why potential sub-division was supported by the Council against the concern of the Heritage Advisory Panel that it may not be consistent with the purpose of Heritage Designation?
--- Why a letter of intent to buy 2031 Runnymede without conditions and with commitment to renovate both house and garden was not answered, as it shows an example of the potential alternatives?
--- Why was there no public hearing of the matter of Heritage Alteration especially in view of so many expressions of objection sent to the Mayor and all the Councillors since last October?
--- What is the purpose of granting Heritage Designation to houses and gardens of distinction if subsequently without public input or exploring other ways, the Council is supporting subdivision of the property?

In this case not for any reason other than profit.

--- What do promises of accountability, transparency, and public debate really mean? Do the words and deeds of these elected officials and their staff ring true?
--- What is taking place behind closed doors, between private interests or special interests and those who have been elected to serve the public interest?
I sincerely hope that in this election year, the Council in its function of serving the community is not willing to put the wishes of speculating developers above the interests of the majority. Hopefully the Council will listen to us and consider our concerns seriously but I appeal to all of you to be vigilant, to attend the Municipality meetings, and if necessary express your dissatisfaction by public protest. It is our civil right and responsibility.

Ewa Lupin,
Oak Bay, B.C.

Victoria's new OCP: whither the park space?

2011-04-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

Victoria's new OCP is designed to facilitate density, paving and population growth. Victoria's water shortage problem will become acute, and gardens, it seems, will be finished. "Water restrictions" will restrict the botanical world, while the building world will go unrestricted: we won't be able to have both. Victoria is predicted to gain about 104,000 newcomers by 2041, who will be herded into urban "villages" dense with duplexes, apartments blocks and row houses. Southern Vancouver Island will be following in the footsteps of British and European large cities of the 19th century. Their apartment blocks and row houses were a function of population growth, and historically, dense neighbourhoods became ghettoes of crime, overcrowding and have-nots (see Pandora Avenue for our version).

In wealthier areas of London's "urban jungle," locked squares surrounded with wrought iron fencing kept gardens available for the few householders with keys. What will the new dense Victoria do for garden space?

We need "children laughing in the streets," says Mayor Fortin, but we had that 40 years ago. That was when kids actually played outside and there were gardens to play in. Now for kids it's all computer games and supervised "programs." No one wants their kids playing in the street. Richard Louv (author of Last Child in the Woods) calls for "nearby nature" (parks and gardens) to be preserved in the world's residential areas. That's where the "sustainability" nature of our new OCP is not so solid.

Paving of gardens cynically re-packaged in Oak Bay as "heritage revitalization"

2011-04-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

"... legislation doesn’t require a public hearing for a heritage revitalization agreement," says Oak Bay Administrator Mark Brennan.

Translation of this remark made at the April 12th Oak Bay "Town Hall Meeting": we can destroy gardens to pay for the renovation of houses, whether neighbours like it or not, and even when these gardens too are "heritage" designated.

Oak Bay held an official "Town Hall Meeting" in response to a rally at the Municipal Hall in March, during which residents demanded a more responsive Council, more conservation and less development in Oak Bay's leafy heritage neighbourhoods.

At the Town Hill Meeting, councillors (presumably having decided together on a stance before-hand) mostly listened, answered few questions and made no promises. Participants meanwhile almost (but not quite) unanimously demanded protection for heritage gardens and tree cover, and the rejection of legal secondary suites and "monster houses." If any developers were present they too were keeping quiet, and allowing the people of Oak Bay to vent.

The problem with these exercises is that afterwards Council and developers feel able to say that residents had been "consulted," that they had "had their say." What they say, however, will be ignored unless they mount a very forceful defense against profit-making interests and the pressures of population growth. Much is made of the unaffordability of Oak Bay real estate but the wealthy population must be growing too, since expensive large homes keep being built on subdivided properties, and sold. Only a moratorium on further subdivision, in the interests of urban forest and landscape protection, embodied in a new OCP, would stem the tide of paving.

Council will air the "Blair Gowie" issue - the destruction of a heritage garden created by Butchart Garden relative Pam Ellis (see photo above) at the behest of local developers who call garden destruction "revitalization" - on Monday April 18th, 7:00 pm.

Hear ye, hear ye, come to the Town Hall Meeting! (And Stand Up with Hearts of Oak!)

2011-04-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

Tree and heritage garden defenders in Oak Bay have been getting really fed up by the non-response of the Municipal Government to their pleas for conservation. There is an accusation that the Council is in the hands of developers. The mayor has left his position to run in the federal election, but his parting gift (though he will be back temporarily if he loses) to disgruntled residents who rallied outside the Municipal Hall in March, is the organization of a public meeting where they can air their grievances.

Many groups are taking him up on the offer to speak, and some are concerned about the loss of a great many trees to subdivision and development in the leafiest suburb during the last few years, as well as the total non-response of the Council to letters and e-mails from those who object. If you fall into this category, please come to:

Town Hall Meeting,
April 12th
7:00 pm
Monterey Centre, 1442 Monterey Ave.

From Seed to Shining Seed

2011-04-02T11:13:00.000-07:00

There is a wonderful new book just out, about gardens on the grand scale -- forested gardens of trees, where agricultural and composting methods were tested over large plots: this is The Founding Gardeners, by Andrea Wulf (author of the previous exhaustive exploration of classical gardening and specimen-collecting, The Brother Gardeners). The "founding gardeners" were the American founding fathers (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Madison) in their role as garden designers, and Wulf describes their experiments on their own large estates.

The current interest in native plants for the household garden isn't new; when the American Republic was new, Jefferson emphasized its independence from Britain by bringing native trees into his garden from all around the new nation. Now we would point out however, that "national" doesn't mean "native." Ecologically speaking, a plant is native to its bioregion, not to a political nation state. Unfortunately, humanity draws its borders with no regard for bioregions, so national plants aren't really close cousins in any evolutionary sense. So what are the proper botannical citizens for a given climate and stretch of landscape? One answer is: whatever thrives there. We can let Mother Nature decide where her children are going to live, and they have always moved around: that is the geo-climactically dynamic nature of Planet Earth. In our understandable need to be conservationist (understandable in the face of terrifying habitat and species loss), we sometimes want to keep our garden-environment static, but it is not static. Nature is continually issuing new passports and plant races are continually on the move, just as human immigrants spread across the globe.

Interestingly, even as we call for "diversity" in the human population and strive to tolerate a mosaic of newcomers, we are increasingly less tolerant of "exotic" plant importations. When they take root as successful immigrants they are often pulled out lest they compete too successfully with the first-comers (what does that remind you of??)

But ever-changing diversity is nature's way, and too much native-plant purism may be merely human. We all know that the political nation is not the plant nation, but to understand the latter we might take this advice from Michel de Montaigne: "Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her business better than we do."

Chicken Coop For the Soul

2011-04-02T08:44:00.000-07:00

Now that the backyard chicken coop has been officially approved by Saanich Council (adding to their acceptance in Victoria and Oak Bay), a councillor confirmed this week on the radio that homeowners may get "a chicken." In fact however they should take care never to house a single chicken. Hens can do without a rooster around but not without the company of each other. They are intensely social birds and will pine and die of loneliness if not part of a pecking order (yes, they really do have complicated relationships among themselves).

Hens like people and are a curious and amusing pet, but they like each other even more. They also need weather-proof housing and room to scratch and peck, and fresh water. The idea that they are not a sensitive and intelligent creature will perhaps finally be put to rest as more people get a small backyard flock and discover their true natures. One other thing: they love to be under trees. They like the sense of protection and shelter (and actual protection from hot summer sun) that trees give. Who doesn't? Keeping animals, we find more in common with the rest of the animal kingdom than some might have realized we have.

The over one hundred current breeds of poultry all evolved from a tree-living bird 4000 years ago -- the Asian Wild Jungle Fowl. Many breeds still roost in tree branches if given a chance. You can take the chicken out of the trees, but not the trees out of the chicken. Unfortunately you will probably have to take the chickens off the branches at night so as to keep them away from raccoons, but make sure they have lots of branch-like roosting poles in their coop (and trees to shelter under during the day). Trees, other greenery, fresh air, space around our homes ... in making suburbia pleasant for poultry pets, we may help to keep it healthy for ourselves.

For a handy how-to booklet with details on taking part in the urban "chicken coup," get a copy of Poultry Pets In the Garden: Raising Backyard Chickens, (Ninshu Press - $7) - available at Overleaf Cafe-Bookshop, 1105 Pandora Ave., or from naturalreviews@hotmail.com)

How much more paving can downtown Victoria take?

2011-03-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

According to the experts, a city (which is by definition a built area) should nevertheless retain a 40% cover of tree canopy in order to avoid becoming one of Earth's "heat islands." Downtown Victoria has only 7% canopy cover, according to the Parks Department. So what we see in the view above of tree tops from the top of the Medical Arts Building (at Cook & Pandora) is precious. With greater densification recently approved and plans for highrise jungles in Vic West, what chance does the urban forest have? Whatever happened to the Urban Forest Master Plan, about which so many public "consultations" were held, and money spent and reports solicited? Protecting the urban forest no longer seems to come up during councillors' deliberations.

Regarding fixing up the problem area of Pandora Avenue, we hear that for $500,000 grass, instead of being reclaimed, will be paved as sidewalk. Does downtown Victoria need to lose any more grass?? The soft growing surface is a precious rarity in current times, and to pave grass is merely to avoid what the real problem is with Pandora, which it is so often politically-incorrect to discuss openly.

A real, green lot full of trees could have been purchased and rescued from development for that $500,000. The City should be preserving the greenspaces that come on the market, not facilitating their destruction.

Saving pockets of downtown greenspace: Cridge Park a success story

2011-03-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

The photo above shows one of the tree monarchs (note the little holly tree growing within it) surviving in historic Cridge Park, located where Belleville Street curves and stretches to Humboldt and leads on to Blanshard. This is a busy and changeable area of town, where new highrises are jostling fragments of greenspace in the form of the St Ann's Academy grounds and, due to years of hard work by its protectors, Cridge Park.

As the city Council approves ever-increasing densification for Victoria, and plans MORE towers for the west side-Songhees area, with absolutely NO new parks acquisition being accomplished for many years, hanging on to what we've got is more crucial than ever. The Cridge Park Rescue Group has put out this notice of a celebration of its success:

The City of Victoria's Park department has been busy laying new sod, installing benches, paving paths, establishing fern gardens and creating a children's natural climber amongst the large trees. Light standards offer a new cheery glow and an elegant metal picket fence encloses the natural space and Church of Our Lord.

Armed with a long term lease, members of the CP Bowling Club have also thrown themselves into capital improvement projects. New wood lattice fencing has been installed along the pedestrian walkway beside the Crystal Garden, rose border gardens have been expanded, pavers lain for a patio, benches refurbished and the green itself levelled with new plinth boards.

Where paths cross at the heart of the Park, a natural stone obelisk has been raised amongst a small bed of flowers. Historical plaques commemorating Mary and Bishop Cridge, the Head of the Harbour, Church Of Our Lord and the recreational legacy of the Park will be installed around this stone. Mayor Fortin will be unveiling these plaques on April 8th. You're all invited!

What: Cridge Park Renewal Celebration

When: Friday, April 8, 2011, from 11:15 a.m. to noon

Where. Cridge Park, 720 Belleville Street

A reception will follow at the Church of Our Lord, adjacent to the park.

Parking is available on-street and at the parking lot off Belleville Street.

Equinox musings

2011-03-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

Spring equinox today! It's been a late spring this year, the flowers challenged by wind, cold and snow. It's fascinating how all winter the Earth in these parts contrives to keep blooming - moss glinting with a rich green giving late-afternoon beauty even to the gravel of a parking lot, and tough undergrowth surviving under the bare wind-tossed trees at Cattle Point. We call these plants "pests" but they are doing a job for Earth, keeping photosynthesis going year-round, when other species aren't.

Top: Stout ancient holly plants have blended with the actual substance of these tough little oaks as a bulwark against the winds off the ocean. Here the holly vines have become thick stakes holding the trees up rather than pulling them down - a successful marriage arranged by Mother Nature.

Meet at Oak Municipal Hall, March 21st, 11:30 am For Protection of Greenspace in Oak Bay

2011-03-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

This is the text of a pamphlet being circulated in Oak Bay this week - many groups and individuals are coming forward in protest against a recent increase in subdivision and destruction of historic gardens and greenspace in that municipality.

Help Save Oak Bay Heritage and Green Spaces
The Oak Bay Green Committee is dedicated to preserving the existing green spaces within Oak Bay. Our heritage-designated homes and gardens are under the threat of development.
The Blair Gowie property, at 2031 Runnymede Pl. was designed by Samuel Maclure and built in 1916. Both the house and garden are heritage designated. Oak Bay Council is considering allowing the land to be de-designated and built upon. This would destroy the original character of the house and garden, against the wishes of the last owner.

A rally will be held on Monday March 21st, in front of the Oak Bay Municipal Hall, to protest this and other changes to the heritage and green values of our neighbourhoods.

Join us at 11:30 am, hope to see you there. Pass it on!

Oak Bay Green Committee

Find the wrecked cars and uprooted trees at UVIC

2011-03-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

Re. rabbits on UVIC campus: according to the university administration, "they not only dig up fields and lawns, but they also kill mature trees, cause car accidents and leave enormous amounts of feces that sometimes need to be cleaned up with a leaf blower."

Right. There they are, in the pictures above: dead trees, smashed cars, mountains of feces ... see them?

For meaningful rabbit information go to: http://www.tracs-bc.ca/uvicbun.html

Space for the Deer Departed?

2011-02-27T10:03:00.000-08:00

During the past fall and summer we heard much hysteria about being "over-run" by deer in Victoria. But where are these deer now? When did you last see one? After ongoing arguments about culling them, maybe many have been culled, like Napoleon's army in Russia, by Old Man Winter.

A lovely book by Elizabeth M. Thomas, The Hidden Life of Deer: Lessons From the Natural World (HarperCollins, 2009), mulls over the wildlife-feeding habit that many nature lovers fall into, discussing not only deer but turkeys, pigeons and stray dogs. Pigeons were brought to North America by Europeans. In nature their numbers were controlled by the need to find nesting space on rock ledges -- not something that occured everywhere. Buildings unfortunately do occur everywhere, and cities full of buildings have made perfect ledges and roofs for pigeon nests. Then, of course, after the pigeons build nests and raise young, we curse them for their numerousness and call them flying vermin.

Likewise, we take away deer habitat and then wonder why the deer have responded by adapting to our richly planted suburban gardens.

There is a pseudo-scientific attitude that we should "leave wildlife alone," and let a certain amount of it starve "naturally." There is nothing natural however about either the human-infested habitat we have replaced wilderness with, or turning a cold shoulder on the sufferings of bone-thin, collapsing, starving deer in a cold winter such as Victoria has been visited with in this week's snowy cold snap.

In her book Thomas educates us on the fascinating ways of deer, such as how males scrape oval dips in the earth and then mark the place by breaking nearby branches during the mating season (deer are tool-users!), and how fawns learn not from "instinct" but from imitating their elders (thus ours don't fear humans and dogs in their new, suburban environment, since these humans without guns and dogs on leashes have not hurt their mothers and fathers). Thomas in turn has learned from watching deer and has written this book to show us her knowledge, useful to us since North Americans increasingly encounter deer as the deer are forced out of dwindling woods and into suburbia.

In one of its frequent episodes of vanity-funding, the municipality of Victoria proposes to finance high fencing or hedging around the Ross Bay Cemetery. As well as cemetery this is a fascinating park, arboretum, and outdoor museum of history, and one could argue that despite problems with vandalism it should not be made totally inaccessible to the taxpayers that suppport it. On the other hand, as long as there are gates through which folks can enter, wouldn't a fenced Ross Bay Cemetery be the perfect place to let our deer, caught and neutered, live out their lives in peace and safety? They could only add to the charm of the old cemetery and some of us would be glad to think of woodland creatures nibbling on plants being fertilized from below by our decomposing bodies -- truly the all-is-one blending of the generations of living things.

The green burial is becoming popular, especially in Britain but also in small tentative sites in BC. The idea is that graveyards be nature parks rather than mausoleums, and that we don't separate our bodies from the Earth whence they came, with preservatives and sealed coffins. In Paris the Pere Lachaise Cemetery is full of feral cats (see Bill Richardson's hilarious novel Waiting For Gertrude on their form of unification with humanity ...) - so why not deer? If they were there now, they could be fed, and not left to die as freezing bone-racks.

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The Birds and the Trees

2011-02-21T20:24:00.001-08:00

Nature lovers: see fabulous bird images at Overleaf Cafe-Bookshop (1105 Pandora - Pandora & Cook Street) by Elizabeth Rhett Woods and Caspar Davis, until the end of March. Whenever we go into Greater Victoria's wooded or shoreline areas, we will meet our avian compatriots. What is it about their appearance, their antics and their tuneful languages that so enraptures us?

They enrich our lives, and their home and our home are one -- we must protect habitat for all, from pollution, pesticides and over-development.

For more: www.elizabethrhettwoods.com.

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"Amongnature" in Victoria

2011-02-19T17:37:00.000-08:00

Now that we're getting closer to spring and to daylight saving time, families are thinking about hikes and picnics in parks. For a one-stop source on the fabulous array of outdoor parkland choices we have in Greater Victoria, visit the website www.victoria.amongnature.net. It lists 39 parks, some right in town (such as Anderson Hill and Cattle Point) and some in surrounding woodland (such as Goldstream and Matheson Lake - to pick out but a few).

The site was created by "Rocketday" in order to "help both locals and visitors, and in particular parents and teachers (with their kids), explore local parks. We were inspired by Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods, which describes the threat of new generations having much less of a relationship with nature than in the past."

The photos on the site are beautiful, especially if you like trees, but so are the photos of the spectacular views many of these parks boast, and the close-ups of the beauty right at our feet: rock, bark, grass ... The entry for each park (conveniently indexed) includes useful stats as well, on size and topography and on the species of birds and plants to be found.

Enjoy this site now and dream of the lengthening days of balmy weather to come soon when we can visit the extraordinarily beautiful landscapes we need to continue to protect and expand.

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Do not fear the urban furbearers

2011-02-07T20:28:00.000-08:00

This squirrel is the denizen, along with his mate and offspring, of the front porch of an observant human who has learned to tell the members of his family apart. The squirrel family eat peanuts donated by the human and give much pleasure and entertainment in return. The garden is lush with trees, shrubs, undergrowth ... no squirrel has done any harm to any plants here, though we sometimes hear huffing and puffing on that score by an anti-urban wildlife lobby.

Says local writer Margaret Hunt on "the protection of the living":

"Whether babies, animals, fish, birds, people ... life is precious - all of it. (The squirrel) is eating at the table! We all need to eat! - and be left in peace when we are doing it."

So don't-worry-be-happy with wildlife. We're so lucky it's there. Look closely! Enjoy!

P.S.: See also poet Margaret Hunt's latest article (on another topic) in the current James Bay Beacon

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"Heritage Under Threat" meeting well-attended in Oak Bay

2011-01-23T10:14:00.000-08:00

Which Do We Want?

People were crowded together more closely than houses in a subdivision, at the meeting on "Heritage Gardens Under Threat" held on Friday January 21st in the Oak Bay Library's meeting room. The immediate focus of concern was the Blair Gowie mansion situated in the Runnymede-Mountjoy neighbourhood, the nature of the threat is infilling of gardens for development, and the overall concern was for large properties in general, as Oak Bay (like the rest of Greater Victoria) has no clear policy for protecting its garden heritage.

There is language in its Official Community Plan about protecting heritage, neighbourhood character, trees and greenspace, but Council continually gives variance permits for development that destroys all of the above. Two Councillors (Tara Ney and Hazel Braithwaite) bravely attended the meeting and graciously fielded questions by residents who object to the Council's record in this regard.

There was standing room only at the meeting and people crowding outside the doorway -- it is a good example of how people throughout the sprawling built-up world are trying to rescue land within and around cities. The first-settled privately-owned green spaces within cities are regularly at risk - heritage properties are being gobbled up by development as is woodland and farmland on the outskirts of cities.

The Oak Bay meeting produced the following statement of opinion:

The mature trees and historical interest of heritage gardens such as Blair Gowie (2031 Runnymede Place) are Oak Bay's foremost asset.

The aesthetic value of heritage gardens is equal to that of heritage buildings, and gardens should not be sacrificed in order to preserve buildings. For that reason we oppose the subdivision of the Ellis property (Blair Gowie), for which buyers are available who intend to preserve both garden and house.

We support bylaws and tax structures which reward homeowners for maintaining trees rather than for cutting them down. We all benefit from the ecological work which large trees do: air cleansing, noise buffering, habitat maintenance, and street shading which moderates temperature and reduces both heating and cooling systems.

Continuous canopy and corridors for undergrowth species, songbirds and other pollinators are essential for an ecologically-healthy urban landscape.

Limits to subdivision and infilling will need to be established if we are not to squander Oak Bay's most cherished natural and aesthetic characteristics. Particular areas should be off-limit to further densification. A landmark property like Blair Gowie is an obvious candidate for preservation in its entirety, and there is no justificiation for varying rules established in the first place to preserve for future generations the ecological, aesthetic and historic values of neighbourhoods like Runnymede-Mountjoy.

We recommend that Council place a moratorium on further splitting of lots until an updated Official Community Plan is in place. We need an overall policy for landscape and heritage preservation for the municipality ... not just for individual houses and trees, and we also need to enforce the provisions which already exist for tree protection and replacement.

What constitutes an invasive species?

2011-01-09T10:08:00.000-08:00

Photos from the outskirts of Uplands Park -- which of these (weeds or building) depicts the greater threat to the survival of natural landscape in Greater Victoria?

(Funny they call it "Abstract Development" when there's nothing abstract about it; the right name would be Concrete Development.)

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Good Hedges Make Good Neighbours

2011-01-02T10:09:00.001-08:00

BOTTOM: HOLLY
2nd: LAUREL
TOP: CEDAR

Many people value privacy. This holly hedge may be from the original holly farms that existed in its neighbourhood (Foul Bay/Quamichan Street) early in the 20th century. If anyone has a deer problem - make a holly hedge. (It works better and looks better than a chainlink fence.) Holly is often found around oak seedlings in natural woodland - Nature knows how to protect baby trees, which sprout from the acorns hidden by caching creatures like birds and squirrels, from browsing creatures like deer. If we follow Nature's ways in our gardening and urban planning, we won't go far wrong and could keep our landscape alive. And of course hedges are great as noise buffers and shields from overlooking windows in densely-packed neighbourhoods.

UPDATE, JANUARY 11th:

The common cormorant or shag
lays eggs inside a paper bag
The reason you will see no doubt
is to keep the lightning out
But bears may come along with buns
and steal the bags to hold the crumbs

Ogden Nash's nonsense verse seems like nature really is, sometimes. We don't always understand the whimsical twists and turns she takes in her ever-shifting dynamism of adaptation and mal-adaptation, competition and symbiosis, overpopulation and underpopulation ... The Garry Oak Ecosystem Recovery Team reminds us that in this part of the world holly is not a native tree, and if we plant it birds may come along, scatter its berries and spread holly much further and wider in our gardens than we would like. It loves the crevices in our natually-occuring rock and Earth loves it back, pulling it adamantly down into herself and making it almost impossible to uproot. It's loved by people at Christmas for bringing in glossy colour during the greyness of winter -- a real Solstice tree -- but when its leaves finally dry up they are hopeless in compost, so it is a problematical plant all round, not only for the deer.

It is interesting that holly is indigestible both to animals' stomachs and to Earth's soil when it dies and decomposes ... it is apparently the northern cousin of Central-South American cacti, which also have that toughness that allows them to thrive in a dry rocky environment (or a desert-sandy one: rock ground down). Will we see more holly if the climate warms here in the rocky temperate north? Do bags keep lightning out? Nature often makes nonsense of our predictions - so who knows?

Birds may come along with beaks
and propogate holly in a matter of weeks ...

(apologies to Ogden Nash)

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Local Nature Books Tell Us Where to Go, and Why

2010-12-28T11:33:00.000-08:00

If you can't get enough of trees, you've got lots of company. Many in the CRD live here or came here to settle because of our exuberant natural landscape -- our wooded areas, stupendous beaches right here in town as well as up-coast, our parks and walks and fragments of still-existing rolling farmland on the Saanich Peninsula. We tend to write books about all this too. One new one is Childhood Pastorale: Children, Nature and the Preservation of Landscape (see www.ninshupress.ca); others are the Hiking Trails series by the V.I. Trails Information Society, Secret Beaches of Greater Victoria, by Theo Dombrowski, and Victoria Bench By Bench, by Rebecca Kennel.

The latter guides you (with a plethora of historical information) on walks centred on good benches where one can sit, think and observe as you go. It's a good partner to the Urban Restoration Walks organized through Continuing Studies at UVIC (next ones coming up in February). Whenever we restore nature in urbanized areas, nature is restoring us. All these walks and beach visits are antidotes to "nature deficit disorder" from which many suffer in urban centres, and all these books are available at OVERLEAF CAFE-BOOKSHOP, 1105 Pandora Ave (at Cook, in the Medical Arts Building)

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The persistence of trees - holly never gives up

2010-12-27T18:15:00.001-08:00

Will this beautiful colonial wall survive the infill housing development set for this once-single-house residential site on Foul Bay Road? The holly tree which was part of the old garden has been chopped off mid-trunk (see top right of top photo), but it sends out shoots in a brave attempt to keep on living, reaching for the winter sky and making its richly green spiky leaves out of LIGHT, for us to use in decorating our homes during the season of winter darkness -- bringing in the leaves to cheer us while we wait for spring.

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Destruction of a neighbourhood?

2010-12-27T17:34:00.000-08:00

If you look down from Walbran Park in Oak Bay (Gonzales Hill), towards the north, you see a swathe of greenery and tree canopy stretching all the way to Oak Bay Avenue, composed of the meetings of backyards of houses along Mountjoy Avenue, Runnymede, Foul Bay Road, Central Avenue and various little cul-de-sacs running into them. This lovely wooded area, home to much wildlife, birdlife, mature trees and wildflowers is presently being eroded by infill building.

Zoning bylaws exist to protect these green gardens from destruction, having been passed by past Councils who apparently cared about protecting the green character of Oak Bay and the south Oak Bay/Fairfield (Victoria) border area, but variance permits are continually being issued which allow developers to bypass these protections and "to remove certain regulatory obstacles" to relentless subdivision, shrinkage and paving of lots. Why? Why are the values which these bylaws protect being eliminated? Currently the Oak Bay Council is allowing a variance permit for putting a road into a large lot, dividing it into two and building houses at 754 Mountjoy Avenue: See details at http://www.oakbaybc.org/minutes/c_dec13-10.pdf

Middle photo: Too late for this garden.

Bottom: Preparing for infilling?

Top: How long will there be quiet country lanes for dog-walking in south Oak Bay?

Ellis Property in Oak Bay - Can this Eden Be Saved?

2010-12-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

At one of Oak Bay's most attractive conjunctions of winding tree-blessed roads (Runnymede and Mountjoy Avenue, at 2031 Runnymede), the heritage house owned by the Ellis family stands under threat from developers. There is a request before the municipal council to abandon Oak Bay's tree-protection and landscape-protection bylaws, and allow this heritage garden to be subdivided, a request being heard even though an alternative buyer is willing to leave the property and garden intact.

A prominant local artist was commissioned by the now-deceased Mrs. Ellis to make a drawing of her beloved house, at which time Mrs. Ellis expressed her intention to the artist to have the entire lot protected from development after her death. Why, when the feelings of neighbours (letters and notices have been circulated against this for some time), the wishes of the deceased, and the greenspace-protection principles of the municipality are all against destruction of this beautiful mature garden, would Council consider subdivision and building? The garden lends grace to the entire neighbourhood and is pleasing to all who walk in the area, but the country-lane aspect shown in the photo above will be destroyed by widening, construction, tree removal and pipe-laying if this variance is permitted -- i.e. by all the things which the regulations were meant to prevent.

Wanderpaths or Nightmareplaces -- which will we choose?

2010-11-28T10:34:00.000-08:00

James Cameron, director of the movie Avatar, has started Avatar Home Tree Initiative which aims to plant a million trees around the world, including in Canada. Will the day come when a denuded, paved-over Victoria needs a newly planted "Avatar Forest"? Better would be to stop denuding lower Vancouver Island of trees in the first place, in the path of wandering suburbia (and "urbia," which is just suburbia densified).

Above: How many arches like this one on Burdett Street will be left leading to leafy garden glades? Lower: will all public space be like this, in post-development Victoria?

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Childhood Pastorale: Children, Nature, and the Preservation of Landscape

2010-11-17T18:42:00.000-08:00

Why do we need trees? For cleansing the air, shading the ground, producing oxygen, housing the birds, insects and epiphytes ... yes. But also, to make the world nicer for children, who would otherwise suffer from the emergence of "nature deficit disorder." Nature deficit disorder is the complex of physical and psychological problems which includes obesity, ADHD, depression and behaviourial problems, sense of meaninglessness and disconnection from the rest of the biosphere. It's a complicated complex of issues, connected to the preservation of landscapes in cities and in the countryside. For an airing of the issues, check out:

CHILDHOOD PASTORALE: CHILDREN, NATURE, AND THE PRESERVATION OF LANDSCAPE,
by Barbara Julian,
Ninshu Press,
115 pages, ill., 18.95.

Order at naturalreviews@hotmail.com, or buy a copy at Overleaf Cafe-Bookshop, 1105 Pandora Avenue (at Cook), or other selected bookshops.

Childhood Pastorale weaves together interviews with seniors and youth, with a survey of research on "nature deficit disorder." It dips into the rich historic canon of nature poetry and prose, and also traces trends in greenspace conservation and outdoor recreation worldwide . It examines the relationship between children's health and their access to free play in natural surroundings, and will be of interest to naturalists, educators, parents, recreation specialists and city planners.

"... the more de-natured we allow childhood to become and the more divorced people are from other life forms, the less we will know what we are missing and the faster the disconnection will spread. It is not only a gift for individual children themselves to be given time in nature, it is an insurance policy for the sanity of our race and a boost for the likelihood of our protecting other species."
-- from Childhood Pastorale

On respecting wishes of the dead, and not causing gardens to become dead (Ellis property)

2010-11-08T19:51:00.000-08:00

Regarding the Ellis property situated where Runnymede Place curves pleasingly to meet Mount Joy Crescent in South Oak Bay: Mrs. Ellis, last owner of this key heritage Oak Bay house and garden, stipulated that the house and garden were to be preserved together after her death. She trusted that the officials she dealt with in this regard would facilitate that requirement. But now, developers have homed in on the property with a view to destroying the garden, ostensibly to renovate the house.

There are already bylaws in place for protecting green space and trees, and all the Oak Bay Council, to whom the developers have applied for destruction-rights, have to do is to apply their own rules. The prevailing opinion among neighbours of the house and among Oak Bay's greenspace protectors generally, is that the garden too is part of the property's heritage, as well as being an example of the kind of tree-filled greenspace which no municipality can these days afford to keep losing. There is a buyer who will purchase without destroying the garden, and there is a prior would-be buyer who has already asked for the right to do just that. What will Council do? Overturn their own zoning rules, or give the right to purchase to the preserving buyers?

It is difficult to see why there is a dispute about this. Why do we have the zoning rules and heritage designations we do? What do they represent about the public will, and why would a Council run roughshod over them? Ther is no "house versus garden" quandary in this case, since there is a buyer available who wants to preserve both. In any case, why is a house more important than the garden surrounding it? If a house were really falling into disrepair then why not let it go and preserve the historic plantings, not to mention the natural landscape on which the house was once built? Do we have our priorities right, if we save buildings by paving greenspace? Why not let the house go and build a more modestly sized house thus expanding the garden? Such non-commercial ideas never enter minds on Councils or in development offices, although it is what other residents in the neighbourhood would like.

The Marriage of Oak and Rock

2010-11-07T09:56:00.000-08:00

The Marriage of Oak and Rock

The relationship between oak and rock is magical. Druids and assorted Celtic pagans certainly thought so. The word "druid" means "knowledge of the oak." "Drus" is the Greek word for oak and "wid" an Indo-European word for knowledge. People here in Victoria notice that when they collect acorns for planting (as in last year's good acorn fall), few survive, and not those whose long tap root doesn't grow straight down. It seemed puzzling that the things often seem to prefer a rocky location to a smooth open grassy area with lots of water in the soil, but the puzzle is solved when we consider the way the root-sprouting acorn uses a rocky encasement.

Of the acorns I planted after the last mast year, the ones that took off (meaning they are about four feet high after several years), are in little earthy areas within a natural rockery. Some people use tubes to get the roots down and established, but here their tap roots are guided downwards by the surrounding rock, and they seem to want a crevice to lodge in. When they fall onto even open ground, squirrels move them about, hiding them for a future meal. The squirrels usually forget which crevices and old stumps they lodge them in however, and the acorn sprouts. Squirrels (grey and red do the same things) and certain birds, like jays, co-evolved with the different types of oak in a beautiful symphony of behaviours that produced the characteristics of each and the adaptation of all to a certain geological environment. (Many grey squirrels play about my oak-nurturing natural rockery - they are clearly oak-familiars, and in no bad way.)

The marriage of oak and rock is one of nature's amazing local effects: in some cases (such as on Blueberry Hill in Oak Bay) one cannot see where wood ends and rock begins. A branch can dip onto rock and blend with it as it grows and becomes weightier. The hardness of oak is what makes it desirable for house, furniture and ship building -- the "heart of oak" is rock, its partner, its spouse. Is that why the Druids, who worshipped oaks as sacred, also laboured over unbelievable time frames and distances to move giant stones to their circle at Stonehenge? Pagans were "people of the countryside," and they found all these wild things sacred. We are people of the city; what do we find sacred?

B. Julian

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Where are the "verderers"? (Who helps urban deer?)

2010-11-06T10:52:00.000-07:00

Where to now? Above: green corridor on Oak Bay border

A letter writer to the Times Colonist notes that Ministry of the Environment stats show a decrease in the Vancouver Island deer population from an estimated 200,000 in 1980 to about 50,000 today. The reason we have an impression that deer are "taking over" is that the spread of human settlement (i.e. woodland habitat loss) has forced deer into suburbia. Or rather, suburbia has come to the deer and the deer have adapted.

Humans are not the only animals with a right to live their lives in peace. The animals we live with are also part of our community -- the deer, raccoons, squirrels and birds as much as the cats and dogs. The principle of non-harm is the guide many people prefer when deciding how to deal with our animal co-residents. In practical terms this means leaving space for wildlife in urban areas, herding deer into appropriate areas and away from busy streets (they don't actually prefer the latter, given a choice). So what we can do is put hedges and fences around our gardens -- or the vegetable-growing bits -- and open up public greenspaces into corridors which link all in a network of deer-safety.

This greenway network (which are not bikelanes, our previous idea of "greenways") would have the advantage of making the city more attractive for people as well, who like quiet byways, foliage and paths through trees. They would afford safe zones where kids can roam in a bit unpaved nature like their grandparents used to, without being mown down by car or bike. They might encounter a deer, but how lovely for them. Deer have already fearlessly (and foolishly) accepted our presence by not running from us; why shouldn't kids in turn learn to accept the needs of wildlife?

Within the New Forest of England the village of Burley in former centuries supplied "Verderers" who controlled the commons for all and prevented any form of what we would call development. They appointed "Agisters" to keep an eye on the animals who lived there, both free-ranging livestock, like sheep, and wildlife such as the ponies and the five indigenous species of deer. Maybe that's what we need: modern Verderers who can keep an eye on our local greenspaces for the benefit of their animal and plant denizens.

We certainly have no Verderers among Victoria's Council members. Has everyone noticed that there has been ZERO discussion of parks, greenspace and urban forest preservation in the present election for the vacant Council seat? It is odd: yes we have an old bridge, and yes, they say 1500 people are homeless, but hundreds of thousands have other concerns and all are affected by the health of the environment and the quality of air and water.

The City of Victoria has about 80 parks. That sounds like a lot, but most are miniscule "pocket parks," some a mere stretch of boulevard or kids' playgrounds. What we could do is expand and link the true greenspaces, through creative zoning and also public purchasing of key properties as they come on the market (rather than allowing them to be developed by buyers creating an ever-denser brownscape around us).

This is something that must be done at the Regional District level, and many people would prefer money to be spent thus than on the proposed sewage treatment plan which only treats organic sewage which the ocean currents already more than handle, without treating the real environment-destroying contaminants such as engine oils, PCBs, pharmaceuticals and farm chemicals.

There is no humane, non-ugly way of "getting rid" of our deer population. There used to be a few in the pens in Beacon Hill Park. Maybe the excess could be captured, sterilized and put there again, where they could live out there natural lives and die without reproducing. Instead of allowing ourselves to be panicked by their presence we can plan around them, which means planning around the gift of beautiful healthy semi-wild creatures cavorting among us. When will people ever stop grumbling and start marvelling? What would they prefer: deer and rabbits, or a stark, empty, sterile, dead city of unrelieved pavement, big-box houses and highrises?

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The spookiness of plastic

2010-10-25T19:15:00.001-07:00

A very peculiar remark appeared in Monday Magazine last week: the suggestion that children should not carve real pumpkins, because they would not be eaten later. (That they are not, we can probably attribute to the GMO-sterile seeds lobby). However that may be, a pumpkin is probably still the most inoffensive object a child can play with on Hallowe'en. What would Monday prefer? -- that more plastic pumpkin, witch and bat baubles be bought which will end up, one day as all plastic does, in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch of plastic? All plastic ends up there eventually because there is no final recycling of plastic. It can only be broken down into "nurdles" (as scientists have named them): tiny flakes that enter plankton and the rest of the marine food chain, the flesh of animals, and our own metabolism.

The great thing about the garden or farm-grown pumpkin is that once Hallowe'en is over the pumpkin can be thrown onto the compost pile, there to degrade with amazing speed to become part of the soil's matter for next year's growth. What other toy can do that?

Please go to: http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org/

Besides that, the carved pumpkin is an art form. Who wants to "carve" plastic? The pumpkin is like the sand mandalas of the Buddhist monks who not long ago showed their art at the Victoria Art Gallery, before returning it to the beach: such art, like all human and natural artifacts, is transitory. A good lesson for kids. Only plastic doesn't break down. Plastic is indeed a monster, a demon, a harbinger of death. But let's keep Hallowe'en fun -- there are enough horror stories without spoiling that night. Long live the pumpkin farm!

Earth Air Fire Water and Trees

2010-09-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

The ancient Greeks discerned four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water (the ancient Chinese subdivided them into five, "Earth" containing both mineral and vegetable -- metal and wood). Today, here, we lack Water. Water which is the source and medium of life -- 3/4 of the content of our own cells, washing up and down plants, swirling in 15 year cycles through ocean currents, evaporating into the skies from forests and back onto Earth as rain ...

Our environment lacks this medium of life, because we syphon it away for development and plumbing in housing, industry and factories. Maybe it is to make up for that that in some strange human geometry of balance, we turn to a surfeit of Fire. For some reason, while the landscape dries up (and we limit access to Water for people's gardens, the place where nature still tries to thrive in cities), we are now in love with Fire. We are interested in the elements still in abundance (everybody likes abundance).

Is this the reason for the current attraction to the burning of forests and meadows? And for the pious belief that someone "indigenous" did it before so it must be okay (different)?

Nature knows when to use Fire. When lightning strikes, it strikes. When it does not, we should not play with matches. We cannot renew what we have abused and we cannot keep abusing it without destruction. We cannot ignore a deficiency in one element of the whole by turning to the workings of another. We cannot expect to scorch the Earth in the hope that she will somehow renew herself by short-circuiting the destruction we have already caused. We do not know the how, the when and the where of Fire (let's keep in mind the myth of Prometheus?) Stealing Fire, we merely burn alive living animals, insects, birds, dens and nests. Sometimes soil needs Water, sometimes Nature brings on another element. Our job is to keep out of the way. In practice, that would mean preserving large swathes of wilderness where humanity does not go, wherein Nature can renew herself in her own way. We cannot make up for human-caused destruction (which has been going on for millenia before European colonization) by the fantasy of wiping the slate clean. We need to stop playing with tools of destruction, like Fire, under the guise of "soil renewal." Fire sends organic litter on woodland and grassland floors literally up in smoke, and what may return to soil composition in ash depends on availability of sufficient water, which may not be available in the "fire season." Have we forgotten that we are not the only creatures in the woods? Usually we are merely murdering other individuals mid-life-cycle by setting fires. Why? What are we hoping to accomplish?

Red and Gold Arbutus Limbs

2010-09-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

Arbutus trees are particularly beautiful in fall light. You never know where they will choose to thrive best. The top one is at the Empress Hotel grounds, and the bottom on Green Oaks Terrace in Victoria where it is being hemmed in by another big-box house. Sister to Garry oak, arbutus is comfortable in gardens if she likes them, as well as on the dryest storm-tossed flanks of local islands.

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Ready or not - for nature?

2010-09-07T18:57:00.000-07:00

"Ready or not, full-day kindergarten is here to stay" says a local BC television newscast, September 7, 2010. Wow - that's pretty brutal, since children as young as four are obviously not ready, developmentally, psychologically or emotionally, to be turfed out of their homes and away from family into a public setting of people who may have certificates (ECE or whatever ...) but who don't LOVE them.

Kids flourish among people who love them, i.e. among their relatives. Kids also flourish in a natural setting: among trees, birds and bugs, grassy meadows and gardens. They should spend their early years in their homes and their homes should be nestled in natural garden settings, no matter how small. They should smell earth, hear birds, tall to animals.

If for some reason kids cannot get this homelife, their daycare situations (whether you call it "early education" or just childminding) should follow the model of the "forest kindergartens" as provided in Germany for the past 20 years, as well as in Ottawa (Carp Ridge Forest Preschool) and in Scotland (Secret Garden Nursery). These kindergartens exist within forest settings; the children spend most of the day outdoors in "a spacious play environment in local woodland and countryside that offers the child an opportunity to develop curiosity and learning through engagement with nature, the seasons and the elements."

The idea is to connect kids with nature in defiance of the epidemic of "nature deficit disorder" which kids experience in artificial settings (like indoor, plastic-toy and video-game-infested pre-schools and classrooms), where they get insufficient exercise or time for free play (since they have to be organized among legions of their fellows according to all sorts of sterile bureaucratic rules).

If kids MUST be abandoned by their families at a young age (why do you think Nature made them unable to care for themselves at that age? Because they should be with their parents?) at least let's give them a natural healthy setting in which to play and pass their days among "the seasons and the elements". Of course, we will need to preserve such tracts in the city in the first place, if children are to benefit from them with physical and mental health.

How should we treat sacred landscape?

2010-09-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

What makes a piece of landscape "sacred"? That's a question brought up by Star Weiss in a reading at Overleaf Cafe-Bookshop this week, from her book Havens In a Hectic World, which discusses indoor and outdoor sacred places around Victoria as well as some up-Island and on the mainland. It is a question important to consider, because without being conscious of what we value, we too often lose the "sacred" (natural greenspace) to the "profane" (commercial greyspace). The latter expands while the former shrinks, and it will take some concerted effort to stop the process before all that's alive and special about our region is gone - or put in a "tree museum"?

Above: image of a sacred glass tree shape created by Waine Ryzack, placed on the large sacred moss-supporting Garry oak limb which graciously dips to human level - a desperate symbol of wishful protection-magic on land sacrificed to building.

The green, the brown, and the ugly boxes

2010-08-31T19:42:00.000-07:00

Why the current fashion for big box houses? To hold all the stuff people buy at big box stores? Long gone are the cute cottages, surrounded with flowers and shade trees. What does the box-y brutal fortress style of house design say about our current public mentality? Could different zoning/design standards get us back into a better "zone"?

Victoria: Please Buy Public Parks, Not Public Art

2010-07-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

Apparently the City of Victoria has recently spent some hundreds of thousands of dollars on public art installations (e.g. outside the Save-On arena, in Bastion Square and other places), and is planning to spend more. Shaw Community TV in recent interviews showed something of the range of opinions on this art (only the polite sort - the quality of a piece of public art is something the public will always disagree on, art selection being in fact a matter of private taste).

It is the view of tree-watchers that the money could be better spent on buying park space than on buying some people's idea of "art". True, some citizens will argue against parks purchase too, but at least greenspace is of objectively measurable benefit, i.e. for air cleansing, oxygenating, habitat-providing, shading, cooling, etc. Past planners gave generations of model boat floaters, duck feeders and walkers great pleasure by creating the duck pond on Dallas Road in James Bay. Now planners want to add "art for children." But realistically, children are much more interested in ducks than art. More clutter would not enhance this spot. More nature, less humanity is what we are short of in cities. Victoria Council could better spend the "art" money on purchasing lots being sold for development - thus saving them for greenspace. Art objects, markets, galleries, paint-ins, fundraisers etc. are already spreading everywhere in Greater Victoria, but greenspace is shrinking.

The exceptionally beautiful tee and/or greenspaces for sale shown above could have been purchased for the price being spent on sculptures and murals that get at best a mixed reception from the public.

It is regrettable that the horticultural arts don't seem to count in the City's arts policy; if they did, maybe Council would purchase the largest remaining private garden in Victoria, at 1322 Rockland, which is also a historic example of Edwardian garden design (see the bottom photo above). That, from the point of view of heritage and aesthetics both, plus space where people could enjoy themselves, would be of much more value for money than another twisted heap of metal outside some downtown building. (Or, to please everybody, include a twisted metal feature in the reclaimed garden design?)

Welcome to Victoria's No-fun Parks

2010-07-16T20:19:00.000-07:00

At this time of writing, it is July 16th: Bastille Day, in France. A friend in Paris writes that he will find the best place along the Seine where with friends he will drink a glass of wine while watching the fireworks that celebrate freedom from political and religious oppression, as will thousands of others in Paris.

Too bad that at the Symphony Splash here in Victoria, we won't be legally able to do that. A glass of wine is puritanically declared out of bounds for calm adults enjoying the sunset and the music in Victoria, B.C. Nor can we enjoy a glass of wine with a picnic in our parks or on our beaches during summer in Victoria.

What on Earth is wrong with us??

This is only one of the things we may not do in our parks. We may not let dogs have fun either, going off-leash, except in certain grudgingly-accepted areas like Dallas Road.

Are we taxpaying adults or what? We are taxed to the max, but can we enjoy our public places if we are not card-carrying Mormons or Puritans from a previous century?

And don't even mention watering the plants you have lovingly acquired over the years, searching out the various delights offered in local nurseries. If it's not your watering "day," you must let them shrivel up and starve.

When did "green" become bad? When did a humble, inoffensive carpet of green leaves of grass, peacefully photosynthesyzing their way into health and life, become the enemy? Who has decreed that the "city of gardens" should turn brown? How could brown be green (or, as they now call it, "sustainable")? Why do we accept that some level of government wastes tax-money to hire people to harass the tax-payers for watering their own gardens?

If you don't pay taxes anyway, you can "camp" in parks or throw litter and lethal needles in parks, and people can ride a bike on flower beds and paths, or pave the landscape to build highrises for profit - but you cannot water your plants? Just what are our priorites then, our values? We want a world with: no dogs, no wine, no flowers. Right. Generally (although with a lot of bloodshed we don't want to repeat, certainly not on the heavily-policed streets and cells of Victoria), the French Revolution being celebrated in France today came of the European Enlightenment, i.e. the concept of the personal right to freedom, pleasure, and individually chosen values. Where are these things going in Canada?

We've jumped a long way here from parks and gardens, yes - but nature is the foundation. Our relationship with soil, plants and animals is the base of social life. Not killing it to "save water" is relevant to politics. What are we saving water for? To service ever more houses for the profit of the development industry? Because we do not know how to establish a sane population ceiling? It's time for a new Enlightenment. Maybe people should grab a bottle of wine, venture into a CRD park and contemplate the trees. Possibly, in vino veritas; certainly in natura veritas.

NB: In France it's Bastille Day, in England now is the time of a summer performance of Romeo and Juliet in the grounds of Heligan Garden, the most famous reclaimed garden-and-woodland in Britain: "Set against the stunning backdrop of ancient rhododendrons, the audience is invited to bring a picnic, share a glass of wine and sit back to enjoy the show in the magical atmosphere of Heligan by night." Can we do that at the Shakespeare Festival in the Camosun College grounds?

BJ

Meditating on the graceful monarchs of Harris Green

2010-07-15T19:53:00.000-07:00

Above: Harris Green in winter looking east. Below: looking west from Pandora & Cook, over the tops of chestnut trees

Sometimes, getting and spending and rushing about the city, we forget to look at the trees we pass near the downtown core, such as those which grace the grassy median that runs down Pandora Avenue (Harris Green and Pandora Green). Recently two Parks Department employees led a group of tree-lovers on an identification walk on Pandora between Chambers and Quadra, passing the holly, elms, London planes, cherry trees, English oaks, chestnuts and cedars to be found along the route. The group took photos and plan to display them in the fall, after images have been collected showing the whole range of spring-to-fall colours (check Treewatch later for exact dates).

These trees are especially valuable to Victoria because of the paucity of tree cover in the downtown core, right where traffic pollution, noise and heat from pavements make them most necessary for oxygen and shade. The ideal tree cover for a city is 40%, says Chris Hyde-Lay of the Parks Department, and some areas such as Rockland get close to that. Downtown tree cover is only about 7% however, and replacement of aging trees is all the more important as the city grows and building and density continue apace. The threat of drought makes the replacement program ever more tricky. This is an engineered drought, being the result of "water restrictions" meant to "save water." What it is being saved for is not clear however, if not for keeping the treescape alive. To service more houses and industry? If we choose to go that route, we might as well say goodbye to the urban treescape which will be squeezed and starved out unless a specific plan is adopted and given priority for its survival. Trees need space, and trees need water.

The people who planted the stately rows and groupings of trees on Harris and Pandora Green had vision and wisdom. That is why we enjoy the benefits of those monarchs today, and the aesthetic pleasures they bestow on what would be a pretty drab cityscape without them. Do present policy-makers have equal vision?

Botany and Fantasy - images by Linda Foubister

2010-06-19T09:23:00.000-07:00

Images by Linda Foubister of trees at Goward House: the intricacies of old arbutus bark, and canopies spiralling against the sky. Across from Goward House are the imperilled Haro Woods, though it seems that the insanity of destroying them for a sewage treatment plant may no longer be part of the CRD's plans. In the absence of sanity from politicians, maybe the residents of the fairy house above had something to do with it -- public opinion and the needs of nature, wildlife, clean air etc. seem to carry less weight than fairy dust.

From http://www.ancientforestalliance.org/: "Haro Woods is a 9 hectare urban forest in the municipality of Saanich, near the University of Victoria. In this second-growth stand of Douglas firs, western redcedars, shore pine, and arbutus trees are substantial numbers of deer, threatened red-legged frogs, raptors, and owls. It is heavily used as a recreation area by local residents, who have also been lobbying for its protection as a park for several decades."

Many scientists and other experts question the value of the sewage treatment plants being proposed, and the goal of the Association for Responsible Sewage Treatment ("ARESST") is: "To stop the Provincial Government from forcing an unnecessary, costly, and environmentally harmful system onto Greater Victoria taxpayers. The directive to produce a new sewage treatment plan has already led the Capital Regional District to spend millions on planning and design. It will soon require the commitment of hundreds of millions [most likely billions] for construction and operation – all at a time of cutbacks in everything from libraries to health care." Most crucially, it won't keep the damaging chemical pollutants out of the oceans - the ones that have made local whales the most toxic bodies on Earth - and the biological wastes which it would remove are safely dealt with by the ocean.

(On this subject, an Australian team of biologists is currently working on tracking the life of whale poop. Imagine the volume of that compared to humans' -- even though, tragically, the world whale population is only about 10% of what it once was. Whales only produce it at the surface of the ocean, not when they dive downwards, and on the surface it is compost for phytoplanktons which are crucial in drawing carbon out of the atmosphere and pumping oxygen into it.)

As for the forest-threatening situation in Greater Victoria, for more information see: http://www.aresst.ca/. Wherever the plants are put, even if not at Haro Woods, one wonders how many hundreds of trees will be killed when they are dug up along with roads etc. for pipelines to be laid through the neighbourhoods?

Never Mind Flowers, Victoria Needs an Annual Tree Count

2010-06-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

It should be at least as easy as a flower count, and a lot more accurate. Of course accuracy isn't the point; drawing attention to the splendours growing in our parks and gardens is the point, and trees are the most splendid of the splendours, not to mention essential for air cleansing, oxygen production and CO2 absorption, shade, temperature and noise moderation, and bird cover.

It would be telling to find out whether the total tree count is going up or down year by year. What would you guess? It would be a way to gauge the effects of development over time.

Meanwhile the anti-rabbit campaign at UVIC has killed about 100 of the furry little grass-eaters for doing what anyone would think was massive logging, from the way the university and media report on the "rabbit problem." The atmosphere on campus has become poisonous indeed, now that snares and poison boxes are being used, apparently having been brought in previously to kill rats. The site "Rabbit Advocacy" says of snaring rabbits: "Please write to the BC SPCA and ask that the discovery of snares be investigated as cruelty. Surely they wouldn’t be used for cats and dogs. Can you imagine walking into the woods and seeing a poor animal that had struggled and fought to free itself from such cruelty?" But we can also ask of snares and poison boxes: why is it ethical to use them on rats? Don't they suffer just as much as cats, dogs and rabbits? Let's ask the SPCA about that too. No one wants rats around but that doesn't justify cruelty. They're all over Victoria -- seal up your garbage if you don't want them (or better yet, reduce take-away and endless over-packaging). Maybe we could just stop our war on animals. At least let's stop pretending we're doing it for the trees. In nature, rabbits live with trees. Trees survive that. It's us cutting them down for development that they don't survive.

Re. rabbits: according to the SPCA, Richmond's Council has now banned the sale of all rabbits from pet stores in the city. That is what Greater Victoria needs to do.

Gonzales Guardians

2010-05-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

Battered by sea winds but proudly occupying their rocky point - tree sentinels on Gonzales Bay commune with the Olympic Mountains.

UVIC buns to be evicted from heaven?

2010-05-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

Sent by J.L. Just to lighten things up a bit -- (Change the last word to "Victoria"):

A couple made a deal that whoever died first would come back and inform the other whether there is sex after death. After a long life together, the husband was the first to die. True to his word, he made the first contact:
" Marion ... Marion "
"Is that you, Bob?"
"Yes, I've come back like we agreed."
"That's wonderful! What's it like?"
"Well, I get up in the morning, I have sex. I have breakfast and then it's off to the golf course.
I have sex again, bathe in the warm sun and then have sex a couple more times.
Then I have lunch (you'd be proud - lots of greens). Another romp around the golf course, then pretty much have sex the rest of the afternoon. After supper, it's back to golf course again.
Then it's more sex until late at night. I catch some much needed sleep and then the next day it starts all over again"
"Oh, Bob are you in Heaven?"
"No...........I'm reborn as a rabbit in Arizona .

More rabbit-and-trees feedback

2010-05-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

Growing rabbit gang problem -- tough rabbits move on to bike wheel vandalism! Ha ha: that's just a joke by Treewatch, not by the photographer who took these pictures. They were sent by Anthony Perodeau, and they do show definite bark vandalism by rabbits: their form of graffiti, we suppose (actually it's their way to keep their teeth pared).

Damage to the roots of the tree above done by construction is much worse than any harm done by rabbits however. One also wonders why UVIC doesn't simply ring these trunks with little wire fences. It's interesting to reflect that rabbit species evolved in nature (before they became pets) as forest-dwellers, and trees survived them in all the woods, indeed tree species co-evolved with them. Nature has ways of keeping everything in balance, everything flourishing in symbiotic relationships of giving and taking. It's only when humans take over a landscape that everything goes out of whack. Then, we panic when something "feral" invades our institutionalized, artificialized greenspaces.

More rabbit commentary came from A.B., once employed at UVIC and now retired in England:
"Uvic sounds as though it’s become a rather more exciting place than when I was there! But am horrified ... to think that anyone would think of culling all the rabbits."

They seem to have a more relaxed attitude about it generally in England: "... did a hole-in-one on our little local 9-hole golf course, and it was witnessed by about 20 rabbits! There’s also near here a patch of verge beside a very fast dual-carriageway road where rabbits live quite undeterred by all the traffic racing past." (Sounds like it's the bus, truck and car traffic that should be culled there - it's a small island to be harbouring so many people. They must be breeding like rabbits.)

Gardens don't "waste" water, they conserve water

2010-05-08T17:01:00.000-07:00

In a book from 2005 (Curious By Nature), Candace Savage tells us that in Nebraska, fully 250 kilometers of fibrous roots were measured under half a square mile of grassland. The roots of grass are what hold soil in place, so that micro-organisms can break down minerals from rock and soil creating the foundation of terrestrial life. It was the loss of grassland that created the American dustbowl of the 1930s, it was the overuse of the land for agriculture and the removal of the cover that protected the roots that kept the soil alive with microscopic and insect life. It doesn't take long for a little dryness -- a few dry years -- to create havoc in the world we think we can safely wrest for our own purposes from Nature.

Here in BC we have just had the first call of the season for water conservation, the first warning about the paucity of this year's snowpack and its insufficient meltwater. Don't water your garden, say the officials, let your grass go brown and your bedding plants shrivel up.

Sadly, your shrubs will shrivel indeed but grass won't die, the genius of grass is that it has evolved to bounce back greenly from a dry spell with the first enlivening shower -- it is in fact the best covering for dry areas. Removing it to put in spaced-out drought-tolerant plants actually causes soil erosion and compaction from traffic, and loss to wind. The most drought-tolerant plant is grass, but though it tolerates drought, the best grass is watered grass.

If the municipal watering-police were truly motivated to conserve water, they would want to keep gardens in place. They would make sure the cityscape was punctuated with wide greenspaces. Gardens retain water, trees and shrubs pool it for birds and insects in their leaves, return it to the atmosphere and hold it in their roots. A lot preserved for garden space retains water and keeps the environment healthy, while a lot paved over for development is greenspace lost for water. It is now going to harbour a house or apartment block, whose inhabitants will use up hundreds of times more water through their pipes than any garden does, and who will not return it in nature's hydrologic cycle. So if they really want to conserve water, why don't the bureaucrats and politicians put the brakes on development, not on watering gardens? We need to measure how much population our given landscape and climate can healthily support, and limit population growth to that. The alternative is destruction of the living world of nature around us, and a terminally decreasing quality of life for ourselves.

Uplands Park Celebration, April 25th

2010-04-28T18:20:00.000-07:00

Scenes from the Friends of Uplands Park and the Oak Bay Community Association's day of walks, art and music.

It all took place in that beautiful spot where the Garry oak woodland/grassland meets the view looking south over Willows Beach. It reminds us how lucky we are that people in the 19th and early 20th century had the foresight and nature-appreciation ethic needed to protect large stretches of greenspace. Who is doing that today? Municipalities seem more bent on paving than protecting, more obsessed with growth than conservation. When was the last urban park established in Greater Victoria? Where will the next one be? Where will the next generation of children go to run among the wildflowers?

The cruelest month

2010-04-27T17:01:00.000-07:00

"April is the cruelest month, breeding ..."

It is certainly tempestuous, this year. Stormy weather: and each storm seems to give officials another reason to cut down an array of the city's trees. Seen once to be swaying in the wind, they are soon labelled dangerous or "diseased," and removed. What sort of Wasteland are we heading for then?

Caught In the Act: a bad rabbit

2010-04-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

On March 31st a Treewatch post requested that someone "Show us a tree at UVIC that a rabbit has harmed" -- and UVIC's Communications Department has obliged. See the illustrations above. The post had said:

"Students are on this date ripping up the ground in front of the Library at UVIC. Rabbits are not ripping up any ground, yet Uvic wants to kill the rabbits. What's going on here? Victoria News in today's editorial makes it sound like rabbits are trampling the entire city .... yet Tree Watch Victoria has asked both Uvic Communications Department and various media outlets to show ONE picture of ONE plant that has been harmed by a rabbit ... and we have received nothing."

Now we have received these images and we thank Communications for providing them, so as to help us understand what all the fuss is about. They show that aside from grazing on grass, the creatures have nibbled the bark of some trees. These are not beavers however, and it's not clear how many years it would take a rabbit to eat its way through a tree trunk. Certainly some people will find this bark removal unsightly - but is it really a "hanging offense"?

This seems like a rather small cause for such a large effect as a wholesale rabbit massacre. Given the rabbits' crime, animal-lovers still wonder why a catch-neuter-release program is not preferable to a cull. Some say the beasts get onto sport fields and make holes, but no doubt the sports themselves make many more holes, and if protecting trees is the objective -- there aren't many trees on soccer fields. And at least as many people enjoy the presence of the rabbits as enjoy field sports.

Some have written that permits are needed for catch-and-rehouse -- so permits should be obtained. Who issues these permits? No one writing about the matter seems to know. How odd that permits are needed to move animals around, but not to massacre them.

Spring at Harris Green

2010-04-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

April in the city -- spring at Harris Green

Spring

2010-04-11T10:03:00.000-07:00

Pointing the way to spring at Lockier Garden on Estevan - hanging from each of these delicate fingers are long new buds soon to unfurl.

Above: chestnut leaf budding. Middle: goodwill messages people have hung on a new chestnut tree planted where the mature ones were destroyed on Cook Street - in the hope that the new babies will be allowed to grow and thrive. When this tree reaches the age of the chestnuts killed in Cook Street village this winter, what will the attitude of people living around it be toward urban trees?

Why the new war on trees?

2010-04-06T16:36:00.000-07:00

Fifty of them have just been killed at Mount Douglas Park. Municipalities talk as if our parks are war zones full of lethal trees on all sides, all out to get us. Is "kill them before they kill us" the idea?

Jim K. of Freeland, of the U.S. had some advice about that: "If people are worried about getting hit by a tree, just stay out from under them. Play in the highway instead - please." In other words, don't destroy the environment for others just because someone might sue someone if anyone could get hurt by something sometime.

Stats indicate that the probability of being killed by a falling tree is 1 in 20 million, while the chance of being hit by a car is 1 in 16,800. Schoolyards are now seen as particularly dangerous zones. Without trees allowed in them, and kids spending most of their leisure time in front of screens or or at malls, no wonder they grow up with nature deficit disorder. No wonder a fear and suspicion of nature is creeping up on us. The photo above shows the sinuous shapes of oaks as seen in the leafless season at Porter Park in Fairfield -- and also the mutilation done to their branches. We used to expect trees in parks; now we're told by parks managers that trees are hazards.

Maybe we should all agree that if we choose to walk in the woods at Mt Doug or other parks, we do so knowing that we have one chance in 20 million of being killed by a falling tree. We will take on that risk. We want to keep the trees. We know that the risks attendant on not having trees are much worse, and are certain: loss of wildlife, worse air quality, less water retention in soil, an uglier city. What with work safety, public safety, child safety ... aren't we getting a bit safety-obsessed? How emptily risk-free can everything get, without the world being merely dead?

April 1st: Bunzilla Destroys Golf Course

2010-04-01T18:55:00.000-07:00

Aren't these animals monstrous? Invaders and destroyers, they have been spotted at Henderson Golf Course on April 1st. This is a dark day: by April 2nd, no tree will be left standing. This rabbit may look demure, but in fact she is merciless: that lawn will be GONE by tomorrow. So will all the trees. This rabbit made its way from UVIC - it's obviously nothing but a good-for-nothing dropout. No garden in Victoria will be safe from now on.

How sad for the people of Victoria, having to live among ugly animals, amidst such danger and destruction. Just read the media reports -- they'll tell you. There's way too much greenspace in Victoria - it attracts wildlife. Even birds have been reported. And cats. Disgusting. Better to golf at a good hygienic driving range, or better yet, do it virtually - online. Don't leave your couch: no rough destructive furbearing animals there. And keep your kids inside. Fresh air, exercise, and above all animals are bad news.

Show us a tree at UVIC that a rabbit has harmed

2010-03-31T20:41:00.001-07:00

Students are on this date ripping up the ground in front of the Library at UVIC. Rabbits are not ripping up any ground, yet Uvic wants to kill the rabbits. What's going on here? Victoria News in today's editorial makes it sound like rabbits are trampling the entire city .... yet Tree Watch Victoria has asked both Uvic Communications Department and various media outlets to show ONE picture of ONE plant that has been harmed by a rabbit ... and we have received nothing.

The rabbits produce droppings, says one news story. Bulletin: that's not a problem, that is fertilizer, that is nature's GOLD. If the Uvic Grounds Department had sense they would harvest that - they would use it in the lovely gardens around the Multi-faith Chapel..

Speaking of which, is there a Buddhist in the house?? Has anyone thought about the "doctrine of non-harm"? of not harming sentient creatures? It seems there are some who see rabbits as nothing but meals-on-paws. It seems that some cannot stand the sight of an animal being happy, peaceful and harmless, minding its own quiet business while providing a moment of joy to passers-by and peacefully cropping grass. Bulletin: they HELP the grass, it becomes thicker and lusher while being grazed. (Ancient herders knew that, too bad we've forgotten it.) But then some people hate grass too, it not being edible for humans.

Please let's leave the rabbits, and the grass, alone - neither needs us officious destructive humans to destroy and revile it ...

"Catch-neuter-release": is that process of rabbit treatment really beyond all the talent and all the science of an entire university of experts? Maybe the Sociology and Psychology Departments should also get involved? Maybe they could make a formal study of the positive effect which nature and wild (or "feral") animals have on human life and emotions?? (Ever heard of "nature deficit disorder"?) We have become disordered indeed if in this world of violence (from oil spills to the Great Pacific Plastic Gyre, from suicide bombings to local police kicking citizens lying on a downtown boulevard) we think rabbits are our problem. Let's get this in proportion please ... Why not send some rabbits to sanctuaries, to Beacon Hill Park Petting Zoo ... Why not open a petting zoo at Uvic itself for the neutered excess rabbits (maybe at the Daycare Centre?) while leaving some in place, where actually they are an attractive, established and entitled part of the Uvic community? (Bulletin: it's humans that there are too many of; it is buildings, not rabbits, that are destroying the landscape ...)

Will Victoria's new Official Community Plan include room for the urban forest?

2010-03-15T20:44:00.000-07:00

On the same weekend that the City of Victoria is kicking off its request for public input into the new Official Community Plan (March 27th) a group of urban forest/wildlife supporters is meeting at OVERLEAF CAFE-BOOKSTORE (1105 Pandora Ave) to present a workshop on Nature Tales from the Urban Understorey - "Understorey At Overleaf"

Presenters will include Jane Ramsay, offering recent research into pollinators, Alison Moran, student of the hummingbird from the Victoria Natural History Society, and local author Margaret Thompson reading from her beautiful 2009 book Adrift On the Ark: Our Connection to the Natural World..

It is in the somewhat-hidden world of shrubbery, bark and soil that the mosses and fungi, insects, birds and micro-organisms keep the biosphere alive -- circulating water, oxygen, CO2, nitrogen and minerals throughout the living and the geo-physical world. Without leaving space for natural landscape and wildlife, a city cannot be healthy either ecologically or spiritually.

UNDERSTOREY AT OVERLEAF
Join us for readings and information about the importance of the urban forest's understorey. What goes on among the birds, insects, pollinators, mosses and fungi under the trees in an urban setting? How can we maintain a city's "wild edges" and protect its wildlife corridors and biodiversity?
Hear Alison Moran, Jane Ramsay and Margaret Thompson (Adrift On the Ark) & join the conversation at: OVERLEAF CAFE-BOOKSHOP1105 Pandora Ave (Pandora & Cook,
in the Medical Arts Building) Saturday March 27th, Noon - 3 p.m. Door prizes, music, art.

Like humanity, bird populations are global. People import exotic birds from other bioregions, and then abandon them. The World Parrot Refuge in Coombs on Vancouver Island gives sanctuary to hundreds of abandoned and neglected parrots. It has recently had its funding cut off by the Provincial Government. This event is a fundraiser for the World Parrot Refuge -- admission is by donation, no matter how small.

ART at Overleaf Cafe: Oak Bay Artist Joan Turner

2010-02-28T19:36:00.000-08:00

Sixteen canvases by well-known Oak Bay artist Joan Turner now grace the walls of the new "Overleaf Cafe and Bookshop" at 1105 Pandora Avenue (Pandora & Cook, in the Medical Arts Building).

Turner specializes in vibrantly colourful blooms and leaves, with an occasional mellow yellow pear or brightly-feathered chicken added in. She will not this year be participating in the upcoming Oak Bay Art Studio Tour at which many collectors have encountered her works before, but nature art lovers are invited to enjoy her richly coloured acrylic paintings, lit up in the pools of sunlight that fall across the walls at Overleaf, until the end of March.

9:30 - 5:00 Monday - Friday. Overleaf specializes in presenting books by local authors.

Word Quiz For Tree Lovers

2010-02-28T17:30:00.000-08:00

How many of these lovely old-fashioned tree words do you know? They're not much heard in this era of mechanized household gardening using a plethora of electrical equipment, but in his splendid 2007 title Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees, Roger Deakin discusses the following:

"plashing" and "pleaching" (hedges), "pollarding" and "coppicing," (trees, making a coppice wood); also: spinney, greengage, sward, scrump, scion, holloway, bole, spar, and brorch. Definitions will be listed in a later post (how did you do?)

Deakin packs fact into a long lyrical narrative appreciation of trees in England and Australia, Poland and the Urals. Have you ever wondered where apples came from (where they are "native" to, as people put it today)? Kyrgyzstan. An Oxford professor establishes that fact using DNA profiling, so Deakin goes off to the land of apple genesis. We can thank the horses transporting goods along the silk road trails over the centuries: the ancient apple seed is toughly coated enough to withstand the equine digestive tract, and fell to ground all over Europe within its own bed of compost. Now Britain has 6000 varieties. But even in the ancient stone age civilizations people knew how to plant seeds and cross-breed - we know that from the records and pictograms they kept. Human history is tree history, and Deakin walks us through much of it -- it's also the history of soil, flowers, insects, bees, cattle and sheep whose flavourful varieties of cheese and honey come from plants and their sap ("a tree is a river of sap" says Deakin).

And water: the minerals in soil which micro-organisms make available to roots are dissolved in water. Water cycles as vapour from leaves to sky, from clouds to soil and back into roots. How much less water is in a city as it is increasingly paved? Is there a formula for measuring that?

Grass helps: its underground tangles of roots hold water (and the fungi, filaments and micro-organisms that make minerals bio-available), and leaves of grass send off oxygen and moisture into the air. Unless, that is, its water supply is shut off during a dry season with no sprinkler use. "Water conservation" may "save" water, but for what? Household and industrial use?

Diverting water from plants makes natural landscape die off, and banishing grass with its underlying microbe-civilization makes soil erode away. Do we still want our gardens? And the young trees that will replace Victoria's aging public tree population? It is something to think about, when water use is being debated.

Report from BC's Olympics Pavilion

2010-02-25T18:56:00.000-08:00

Photo by Linda Foubister: an interestingly twisted tree outside the Vancouver Art Gallery, where the BC/Canada Pavilion is located for the Olympics.

The Pavilion featured the value of BC forests in reducing carbon loading, including statistics about how many tonnes of carbon a tree stores and how many tonnes a wood-framed house stores. The first room featured the forest and wildlife.

-- Linda Foubister

(TWV: Good thing everybody agrees about the role of the forest in maintaining the atmosphere. Will they agree eventually about the superior value of old-growth as opposed to second and third growth, and the importance of not clearcutting it for lumber or development?)

Slow motion arboreal acrobatics

2010-02-24T17:58:00.000-08:00

Over the course of their lives trees make the most amazing adjustments. In an incredibly slow-motion ballet over decades and centuries, they might crisscross their own limbs (largely in response to light, and the movement of shade cast by larger trees when they are young) until the limbs grow together and fuse, sharing a single vascular system (sharing sap). The late tree expert Roger Deakin wrote that even "the rasping action of the wind" on limbs in close contact can cause them to fuse, over time.

The top 2 trees are on Beach Drive, the bottom lives on Hampshire Road. How on earth did it manage to create this cup-handle shape?

A Personal Forest

2010-02-20T18:43:00.000-08:00

Someone planned ahead: cottage nestled behind sentinel-trees in Oak Bay.

Improvements to Cridge Park

2010-02-15T20:52:00.000-08:00

In any little scap of space she can find, Nature creates something amazing - here is a holly tree growing as an epiphyte on an older tree in Cridge Park, a greenspace hemmed in by pavement, roads and buildings which a dedicated group is trying to preserve in the southeast part of downtown Victoria. (Humboldt/Belleville Street)

"The interest shown in the first Open House by our Group made quite an impression and I hope many of you can attend. Once a master plan has been set we can carry on with the rest of our objectives.... officially designating Cridge Park as a Park, and obtaining Heritage status for this important green space." -- Cridge Park Rescue: cridgeparkrescue@shaw.ca

PUBLIC MEETING: Improvements to Cridge Park - Presentation and Q&A
Cridge Park provides a half-hectare of valuable green space in downtown Victoria consisting of a lawn bowling green and treed area. The City of Victoria will upgrade Cridge Park this year to better meet the needs of the community. Based on recent input from the community, Parks staff have developed a draft plan to improve Cridge Park which they will present at a Public Meeting for feedback this month. Take this opportunity to participate in the planning process, review proposed improvements, ask questions, and provide feedback on the information presented.
What: PUBLIC MEETING: Improvements to Cridge Park - Presentation and Q&A
When: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, from 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Where: Church of Our Lord, Cridge Hall, 626 Blanshard Street
Registration is not required. Complimentary refreshments will be served.
We hope you can join us.
For more information, visit: www.victoria.ca and click on What's New?

Performing Topsoil

2010-02-13T17:05:00.000-08:00

The quaintly described project of "obtaining a Performing Topsoil Layer to advance rainwater management and water conservation goals" will be explained at the Bowker Creek Forum to be held February 23rd at UVIC. The idea is to work with nature in using a spongy layer of topsoil to hold water and prevent it running off in urban environments. Basically it is a way of trying to escape the full force of the results of over-building, in other words trying to increase "green infrastructure" to mitigate the deadening effects of non-green infrastructure.

It seems that bureaucrats may be attending to the problems caused by draining wetlands for development, wetlands being where nature herself stores her fresh water supply. The recent floods in the Cowichan Valley resulted from building on marshland, which had appeared there for a reason: it was fed by overflowing rivers in the rainy seasons. Without wetland absorbancy, those same rivers of course must deposit their volume of water in a long overflowing gush. The best way to avoid disaster is to follow nature's ways, especially the way of water (which, like the Tao, must go where it must).

What is interesting from the naturalist's point of view is how species evolved over time that thrive in the marsh and estuary environment: all the reeds, insects, shorebirds, amphibians that are lost to an area, often eventually going extinct, when such landscape is paved and taken over for human use.

See lots more about green infrastructure and the obligingly high-performing topsoil at http://www.waterbucket.ca/.

Oak Bay Green Committee Survey Results Show Strong Support For Urban Forest

2010-01-25T10:31:00.000-08:00

From Oak Bay Green Committee (oakgreen@shaw.ca):

Survey Analysis: Urban Forest and Watershed Public Forum

A public forum on Oak Bay’s urban forest and watersheds, jointly sponsored by the Oak Bay Green Committee and the Friends of Bowker Creek, was held on May 21, 2009. The forum
included presentations by Jeremy Gye, urban forest consultant and by Ian Graeme, urban watershed advocate, for about 45 participants. Public input was gathered during a discussion period and by a written exit survey using open-ended questions. Three main themes emerged from the exit survey and are summarized below.

Importance and Benefits of Oak Bay’s Urban Forest and Watersheds:

All respondents (n = 10) emphasized the practical and aesthetic benefits of, and the need for, maintaining a healthy urban forest and watersheds, particularly in light of climate change. For example:
Urban forests provide shade, windbreaks, transpiration, carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, food for humans and animals (fruits and nuts), and recreation and education opportunities.

Urban forests also regulate temperature extremes, buffer noise and pollution, reduce soil erosion, and serve as seasonal indicators.

Properly managed urban watersheds mitigate storm and pollution surges and provide habitat for fish, birds, and mammals.

Trees are virtually the only public asset that appreciates rather than depreciates.

All of these benefits improve the quality of urban life and increase property values and neighbourhood beauty and desirability. They also enhance the overall health of the environment and contribute to human health, well-being, and the appreciation of nature.

Current Municipal Management of Oak Bay’s Urban Forest:

Survey respondents offered constructive comments regarding the municipality’s current and future management of Oak Bay’s urban forest and watershed. For example:

The municipality’s focus on public education along with regulations is a sound approach and should be strengthened and consistently applied in the future.

The tree protection bylaw is a good first step, but needs to be strengthened rather than continually weakened and compromised. Lack of monitoring and enforcement, as well as ineffective penalties, are key concerns.

The municipality needs a strategic management plan that balances the long-term benefits of preserving the urban forest and watersheds against short-term, transient benefits and quick-profit-driven motives. This approach would establish a framework with priorities for developing operational plans, and it should include a strong public education component.

Continuation of the municipality’s effort to plant, replace, and maintain boulevard and park trees is critical to the health of Oak Bay’s urban forest.

Ideas for Enhancing Oak Bay’s Urban Forest and Watersheds:

All respondents suggested ways for the municipality and homeowners to achieve greater protection and enhancement of the urban forest and watersheds.
Suggestions for the municipality:

Create a program to assist homeowners in planting high-calibre Garry oaks, thereby augmenting municipal tree recruitment efforts.

In matters of restoration/replacement of trees removed or damaged by developers or homeowners, the municipality might consider taking a bond to be returned when the replacement or rejuvenated tree can be certified as viable. Interest from the bond could help pay for other municipal projects.

Provide incentives to large landholders such as golf courses and private and public schools to help them increase the number of Garry oaks (or other canopy trees) on their properties.

Sponsor workshops to educate homeowners on what they can do to help preserve heritage gardens and grow the urban forest.

Through public education, clarify the cost-benefits of preservation, encourage planting of native species, and discourage the needless destruction of trees.

Conduct more cross-municipality consultations regarding conservation and enhancement of watersheds and regional bio-systems. Aim for true sustainable bio-system corridors instead of isolated islands of trees.

Improve access to Bowker Creek in the vicinity of the Oak Bay Recreation Centre.

Set a long-term goal to allow salmon to return to Bowker Creek.

Suggestions for homeowners:

Enhance habitat for insect pollinators (bees, butterflies) to ensure trees bear fruit.
Learn what trees are the best choices for specific locations within our coastal micro-climates.
Visit rehabilitation sites such as the Brighton Pathway and observe what small groups of committed citizens can achieve.
Support the municipality’s Tree Donation Program.

Prepared by Oak Bay Green Committee

The Invisible Forest

2010-01-23T09:28:00.000-08:00

Miniature forest of lichens and mosses growing on old fence rail, Jubilee neighbourhood

Oliver Sacks reminds us (in Oaxaca Journal) that the big trees around us would not exist without the uptake of minerals and water from soil made possible by the "vast subterranean network of fungal filaments (which act) as living conduits." This symbiotic connection goes back 400 million years, to the origin of land plants, and still connects 90% of known plant species on Earth.

When we look around us, admiring our favourite trees, we often forget all the other species that play a less visible role but which keep the trees alive; we forget that soil is alive and that unpaved ground is not just "real estate" in waiting. Your favourite trees in your garden or local park depend on the rest of the plant and mineral world, and the more interruptions there are in the fabric, such as buildings and roads, not to mention pesticide use, the more perilous life is for trees. They depend on the bacteria in soil, roots and filaments to circulate carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and other minerals, and all depend on water. A hemlock has several miles of roots, entangled with fungi and uncountable bacteria. Bark too is "a cosmos of many life forms," (Roger Caras : The Forest).

Caras calls every tree "a stage, a platform, a means of holding critical chemicals in storage and converting others." Species of lichen (formed out of the symbiotic partnership of algae and fungus) live on and in the platform and in soil, rock and wood, fixing nitrogen from the air for the plant world. Tree, fungi, lichens -- all having co-evolved for hundreds of millions of years "form the chemical web of life, the utter perfection of the natural order" (Caras). In their individual beauty we often appreciate trees as discrete gems, but we forget the whole "perfection of the natural order". We must remember that "saving the trees" in our environment is about saving the whole hinterland of life behind and within them -- the unsung but essential species that live beneath our feet, hanging from branches, living in clefts of rock, mud puddles and vacant lots, busily keeping the planet alive.

Nature's Urban-Wilderness Tree Partnership

2010-01-21T11:06:00.000-08:00

Near Shawnigan Lake

At this year's Truck Loggers Conference, Premier Campbell said of BC that our past was wood, our present is wood, and our future will be wood. So no eco-vision there, no fresh insight or 21st century thinking. If "wood is our future" then nature isn't, wildlife isn't, the biosphere isn't, progressive thinking isn't. Nor is human health or slowing down climate change.

At the climate change talks in Copenhagen Canada along with other developed world forestry countries set their own "base line" of emissions which they cannot go beyond in future, which they set by allowing for what they already cut. Given that deforestation (not transportation, which Campbell distracts us by setting a gas tax on) is the biggest cause of global warming (removal of the vegetation cover by which Earth stabilizes her climate), this is a cynical dangerous piece of fudging.

Suppose we had a traffic law conference, at which it was decided that all drivers could set their own speed limits, and then agree to what each other had set for themselves. They wouldn't have to set the limit at what is safe, they would figure out how fast they like to go, and then kindly and open-mindedly agree to a speed limit above that mark so as not to interfere with what they already do, but still seem to support speed limits and safety. But if a speed limit is 200 km per hour, why have one? It is the same with the logging limits Canada has pushed for.

Campbell and federal politicians will argue that we are allowing no net reduction in forest cover, but that implication too is dishonest. "Net loss" by their narrow definition means loss to agriculture or development use, but removing old growth and replacing it with successively feebler tree plantations also reduces the carbon-absorbing capacity of forests and soils, since this destroys biodiversity. It is the total biological activity of ecosystems that act as Earth's healthy carbon-sinking and circulation system.

As well, we have the parallel process of urban densification going on: the spread and densification of cities takes agricultural and park land too down a notch -- extending pavement outward from cities which are becoming denser (warmer) at their widening core. Paving and building create "heat islands" across continents, all of which raise atmospheric temperature.

Urban/suburban tree cover then is also related to a country's total global warming contribution. Treewatch Victoria usually concentrates on the local tree-scape, but city trees are actually in the same nature-wide enterprise as their country cousins: keeping the biosphere alive. All are part of Earth's forest cover and need to be contiguous with each other, all pumping oxygen into the atmosphere, holding water in the soil, and maintaining habitat for the biodiversity which collectively keeps Earth robust and resilient.

Check out http://www.landtrustalliance.bc.ca/

More on Cook Street Chestnut Tree Demolition

2010-01-19T10:22:00.000-08:00

Fairfield photographer Penny Tennenhouse records the "inglorious demise" of the beloved Cook Street horse chestnuts.

"They didn't even leave stumps in front of the bank and MOKA House -- just like they didn't exist. I was surprised at how fast it all was, and went back home and got my camera. By then it was after 4 p.m., starting to get dark -- sort of fitting."

Cook Street Chestnut Tree Demolition

2010-01-18T16:03:00.000-08:00

Bottom: Futile budding in an attempt to get ready for spring. Does this wood look diseased?

Above: Sun sets for the last time on a magnificent, strong, living being. Buildings rising, trees falling.

Goodbye to Five Dear Friends

2010-01-18T11:34:00.001-08:00

Last chance to shelter here. Last time to fill the winter sky with branches, and to house the nests of birds. Five massive elder chestnut trees in the Cook Street village are to be killed today -- lifelong friends for many and the signature trees that give the village its character. Fall was the shiny chestnuts on Cook Street. And how glaring-hot will summer be on that busy street now, without the big trees' shade?

The City of Victoria has entered into a partnership for tree removal with BC Hydro, a company whose mandate is to make money, not to preserve the urban forest. So a "disease" was discovered and the trees were condemned, to make life easier for power line maintainers. They have bureaucratically christened this a "community re-greening partnership," but it is of course in fact a de-greening partnership, with no community support behind it.

Why couldn't Victoria and Oak Bay do what Saanich did?

2010-01-17T12:15:00.000-08:00

Saanich recently announced that it will buy the waterfront lot next to the McMorran's restaurant property now up for sale on Cordova Bay. The lot beside the McMorran's property will now become a small park, for the reported cost of $869,000.

For about half that price, Victoria could have bought the lot which the well-loved heritage "Chadwick oak" lives on (at 1972 Fairfield Road - middle photo). Then it could have bought a walkers' right-of-way (of the sort popular in Britain) behind adjoining properties which would lead to the Abkhazi Garden (see this area in the bottom photo). Abkhazi was rescued from development some years ago, and a wildlife corridor/walkers' trail linking it to a new pocket park which would have relieved the pave-over of the new Chadwick development, would have been "a no-brainer" to anyone interested in urban green space preservation. Sadly, nobody on the present Victoria Council seems to be.

Nor does anyone on Oak Bay's Council: Oak Bay with a little green imagination could also have done what Saanich did, by rescuing a waterside lot from development and creating a pocket park on the western side of Shoal Bay (top photo). These lots have both now been sold, and the municipalities have lost two more chances to preserve green space and biodiversity. Property prices will only contiue to go up. As population goes up with them, citizens will need the relief of green space ever more urgently in the ever-more congested region. Why don't city planners and politicians have the foresight to act now?

Your chance to contribute to the Bowker Creek Blueprint

2010-01-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

"The Bowker Creek Blueprint presents a vision of how an urban creek can be transformed into a natural oasis for wildlife and people. Healthy urban watersheds foster habitat for native flora and fauna, provide greenways between neighbourhoods and result in cleaner water, less flooding and more liveable communities." -- Bowker Creek Blueprint Initiative

An Open House about the blueprint will be held January 23rd, 10: 00 am to 2:00 pm, at Hillside Mall near the Zellers entrance. The goal is to restore the watershed, and 2010 is a great time to get a jump on it because 2010 is the INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF BIODIVERSITY.

Preserving biodiversity depends on preserving habitat for a rich array of species. The Blueprint aims to transform Bowker Creek back into "a natural oasis for wildlife and people." For memories of how the Oak Bay portion used to look in the agricultural period of its history, go to the "Recollections" section of the online Oak Bay Encyclopedia: http://www.webturf.com/oakbay/history/recollections/

Bowker Creek contact: Tanis Gower
Tel: 250.360.3302
http://www.bowkercreekinitiative.ca/

Alert: Do Not Give Pets and Plants Dirty Bathwater to Drink!

2010-01-15T09:14:00.000-08:00

In a recent segment on conserving Greater Victoria's water supply, Shaw TV's "The Daily" gave this household tip: "when running a bath use cool water to collect for pets". Treewatch contacted The Daily to clarify what this means but has received no answer. Certainly pets cannot be healthy if they drink dirty bathwater full of soaps, bubble bath and who knows what else. Nor will shampoo do a thing for houseplants or bedding plants.

The SPCA, veterinarians and animal welfare groups always stress that the first necessity in proper animal care is fresh, clean, plentiful water available 24/7. Maybe the tip means wash your dog in your used bathwater? Who knows -- but here's a tip for the municipalities using the Sooke reservoir water supply: Stop permitting new subdivisions beyond what the natural water resources of the region can support.

(See also: "The Water-starved Trees of 2009" - Treewatch, Sept. 22/09) (Label "water and drought")

Arbutus at the End of the Rainbow

2010-01-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

Greater Victoria Treescape, Late 2009

2010-01-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

Top two: Along Bowker Creek, near Richmond Road/Haultain

Middle: Downtown, looking south from Johnson Street

Bottom two:

Oak Bay Avenue. (vines creeping up municipal hall are unpopular with some, but Gaia accomplishes photosynthesis wherever she can - if buildings replace woodland, she will use buildings, given the chance)

Urban Forest

2010-01-09T11:56:00.000-08:00

Top: a well-treed garden

Bottom: a still nicely-forested enclave in a South Oak Bay/Victoria border neighbourhood

A Christmas Thought For the Velvet Friends

2009-12-27T09:40:00.000-08:00

Boxing Day: the ground is frozen, a hostile wind bites and the branches are bare of growth. Where are the urban deer hiding, what are they eating now, after we've been told so recently by the media that they are taking over all the parks and gardens?? If in contrast to this ungula-phobia you take Shakespeare's view of the "poor dappled fools ... native burghers of this desert city," you may want to help them out in the cruelest months of winter with a pile of greens left overnight in your garden. It's shocking to think some see the starving things as mere meat, a walking free meal for humans (which brings to mind Oscar Wilde: "nature -- that place where birds fly around uncooked").

But Shakespeare's idea is different; in As You Like It Jacques comes across a wounded deer dying beside a stream in the Forest of Arden:

"...... a poor sequestered stag,
That from the hunter's aim had ta'en a hurt,
The wretched animal heav'd forth such groans
That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat
Almost to bursting, and the big round tears
Cours'd one another down his innocent nose ...
... on th'extremest verge of the swift brook,
Augmenting it with tears."

What seemed worse to Jacques was that the other deer browsing nearby ignored him as he died, "left and abandoned of his velvet friends". As we spring about and browse from store to store hunting out one Boxing Week sale after another, should we spare a thought for the "velvet friends" out there in the cold? FILL YOUR BIRD BATHS EVERY DAY FOR BIRDS, DEER, SQUIRRELS AND RACCOONS - THEY CAN'T DRINK ICE. They wouldn't mind a few of those nuts and cranberries you've been feasting on either.

(by B. Julian)

The Year of the Rampaging Rabbit

2009-12-17T10:59:00.000-08:00

Clearcut heritage garden, four houses now to be crammed in.

From reports in the local newspapers, you'll know that we see this year out with some extraordinary giant-rabbit wreckage. They have knocked down houses, uprooted trees, savaged pitbulls, ripped people's legs off and kidnapped children -- or so you would imagine if you read the newspapers. Funny thing is, when most people see the little grass-nibblers at UVIC they see the picture of peace, the model of minding your own business. The rabbits lift the hearts for a moment, of whoever encounters them while scurrying about on their frantic, stressful human tasks. What a lot we could learn from the rabbits, if we weren't so afraid of them.

The knocked-down houses and uprooted trees are real enough however, but strangely the newspapers aren't hysterically denouncing the development industry which is the cause of that destruction. Tree Watch has asked both UVIC's Communications Department and Shaw TV (which did a segment on rabbits) where the actual damage done by rabbits could be seen, and neither could point us to any. Not a nibbled flower to be found. Last time we looked, UVIC was still alive with burgeoning shrubbery, bedding plants, native plants and stately trees. The grass -- the rabbits' preferred food -- was actually made denser and healthier by their nibbling (as grasslands worldwide has been since they co-evolved with the grazers that live symbiotically on them).

The local municipalities are worried about rabbits getting into the parks, but it is not rabbits that threaten our total percentage of greenspace. Only one small strip was added to Victoria's total green space in 2009 (when the Dockside Green development included a morsel) and none to Oak Bay, yet many acres of private greenspace were lost to property subdivision and building. Is obsessing about rabbits a diversionary response to a threat which policy makers do not want to prevent? Deer have been given a similar role by the deer-overpopulation worriers. Their presence is actually a message to us, from nature. We are here, they are saying, because our old homes beyond the urban core have been clearcut. Your expansion has taken over our space, and now we are seeking shelter in your gardens. We are refugees.

Would we rather have deer-graced gardens, or urban ghettos? We have reached a size where that is the choice which, like thousands of cities before us, we will have to make. Will Victoria acquire any parks in 2010?

Discreetly dissuading deer from entering

2009-12-02T11:12:00.000-08:00

It is not all that difficult to keep deer out of a garden -- here someone has hung soft thin reflective strips that (to a deer) sparkle threateningly, while others use motion-sensitive sprinklers that gently spray them. We have to leave enough space for them to withdraw to, however -- i.e. preserve plenty of urban woodland wildlife corridors.

.