A lot of work has been needed to rehabilitate the small land patch in the center of small roundabout in Glen Drive and 10th Ave. in Vancouver, but for Katie Berlinguette, it was a love work.
“I live in an apartment, like many Vancouveritas, and I don’t have a patio or a patio,” he said, adding that when he looked for space in a community garden at the beginning of this spring, he discovered that the waiting list was long, approximately three to five years on average.
“During my search on the Internet, I found the Green Street Programwhich is the next best option. “
Soon, he had adopted the roundabout near his apartment that had a single crop covered romisc that was almost six feet high. Now, the space that passes every day is a garden of pollinators, full of native plants such as red flowering and lupine rod, as well as edible plants and herbs. He also installed a source with solar energy.
I wanted to fill the space with drought tolerant plants, a great priority, because it is difficult to bring water to space.
“And then being aware of the environment with native plants is very, very important, and it is also what the people of the neighborhood have asked.”
During the last weeks, Berlinguette has been documenting his trip on Tiktok hoping to encourage others to find gardening forms in the city.
“It is a very busy cycle route and people stop every day they see me and say thank you.”
Small changes make a difference in urban spaces
For Kaushal Rathnayake, a pollinator biologist at New Brunswick University, protecting the habitat from pollinators such as bees, butterflies and moths is crucial to protect our own well -being.
Polinizers are an important part of healthy ecosystems, with almost three quarters of the world plants that depend on pollinators.
“We are destroying their habitats and we are destroying their food sources and we are creating inhospitable environments for these insects,” he said.
“Climate change is a great driver for its extinction, therefore, we have to keep them and we have to take measures to improve their well -being.”
No-Mow May, where residents are encouraged to let their grass grow during the month so that pollinators can prosper when they leave hibernation, it is an idea that is seen in Canada, as well as the gardens of the pollinators like the one that tends to Berlinguette. But to properly support pollinators, experts say that biodiversity is key, and that requires a long -term change on a larger scale.
That is the heart of Jens Ulrich’s work as a doctoral candidate at British Columbia University, where he has just wrapped a three -year study Show that even small changes in urban green spaces, such as adding a small meadow in a city park, can make a big difference for the diversity of pollinators.
A new UBC study shows that the planting of wild flower meadows and the reduction of the court in the city parks increased the diversity of wild bees and Hoverfly. The findings of the so -called “bugs parks” are configuring city planning to make urban spaces more friendly to pollinators. Danielle Piper reports.
Ulrich has been collaborating with the city of Vancouver to see how the park management affects pollinators.
Eighteen Parks were surveyed in the course of the study, with half maintained as they would normally. For the other parks, Ulrich and his team created Pollinator Meadows by reducing cutting and adding wild flower seeds. They chose areas within the parks that had less pedestrian traffic, so the meadows would be less harmful to those who use the parks.
Oak Meadows Park, one of the nine areas that the team modified with the pollinators in mind, now includes a meadow next to a football field. It has a higher vegetation, including some native plants such as Lupin.
The results of the study, published in Ecology Letters at the end of last year, showed that the Meadows had a great impact. Many pollinators, such as bumblebees, sweaty bees, holifer bees, mining bees and flies, reached the parks once the meadows were introduced, and stayed during the three years.
“I think we estimate that there are around 60 species per park in the parks with the meadows, compared to the 30 species per park in our conventionally managed spaces,” said Ulrich.
The success of the project has turned out that the city maintains at the nine meadows and also expand the project to include meadows in more parks. The landscape architect of the Vancouver Parks Board, Jack Tupper, who worked with Ulrich, says that the city intends to change some of its six million square meters of grass to a more beneficial habitat.
“This is something that each city should be doing,” Tupper said. “We discovered that the meadows that we have implemented between 2020 and 2023 were significantly beneficial for the ecology of our city.”
He said that the ground under the meadows retained moisture and remained cooler; He also acted as a carbon sink, an area that absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere from which it is released. They also discovered that the fungi and communities of earthworms increased in parks with meadows.
“We are discovering that the meadows are much more environmentally and ecologically balanced, which is really important during our summer months,” Tupper said.
He says that seven percent of the city’s Céspedes, around 42 hectares, have been the transition to Meadows, with the target of the 10 percent transition by 2030.
The city has also shared its findings with municipal colleagues throughout the country in the hope that they do the same.
The importance of public pollinator spaces
Rathnayake, the NB pollinizer biologist, saw for the first time an increase in the gardens of the pollinators in the province around 2019. Since then, it has seen municipalities, and the province, they take the initiative to create pollinating spaces.
Because there are more rear patios than the city parks, Rathnayake believes that both cities and people can help. His dream is to create a vast network of pollinators and meadows gardens that can be used to encourage pollinators in urban environments.
He says that each municipality has a responsibility, “not only to have beautiful landscapes, but also to support local biodiversity.”
He says Fredericton is doing a good job by setting an example and educating the public.
“If you go to the city and go to every roundabout, you would see that many pollinating plants are planting and are giving a small example to the people who spend every day we need to take action.”
Rathnayake, who is also a voluntary educator for the Botanical Garden of Fredericton, emphasizes that fighting for biodiversity does not have to mean sacrificing aesthetics when leaving a whole patio that remains without being visualized. Through this voluntary work, it teaches people what plants use to create and maintain spaces in their own courtyards.
“You just need to have a small dedicated patch where you can have a well -arranged pollinator garden.”
The moths, beetles, hummingbirds and flies are all pollinators, along with bees, of course, that can be helped by planting pollinators.
