More planting

Newly planted Boneset at the sanctuary pond

This week, we did some more planting but this time, we planted along the sanctuary pond. We tried to plant them as close to the edge of the pond as possible. Here's a list of the plants:

Blue Flag (Iris versicolor)

Knotsheath sedge (Carex retrorsa)

Bebb's Sedge (Carex bebbi)

Joe-Pye weed (Eupatorium fistulosum)

Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum)

Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)

Swamp Aster (Aster puniceus)

The soil is very muddy and there are also a lot of roots which makes it harder to get through. Aynsley and Cheryl were there and including myself, there were about 10 of us so we managed to get most of the planting done.

The aerator was on while we were there and seemed to be working although only in one area of the pond where the water was swirling. The rest of the pond was kind of green and scummy.


The bubbling is caused by the aerator

The ponds

The ponds at Riverdale can be quite picturesque and at this time of the year, the water is still pretty clear.

Unfortunately, it's also easier to see the stuff that people have dumped in them. We should fish out this suitcase and open it. Who knows? Maybe there's a lot of money in it.

This looks like a hat. Must have been a windy day.

Cute rabbit

I noticed that Marnie, one of my fellow stewards at Beechwood, posted a picture of a cute rabbit. I decided to steal her idea and post pictures of my own. I haven't seen any rabbits at Riverdale yet but this one wasn't very far.

A slope buried in DSV

DSV or Dog Strangling Vine also known as swallowwort is everywhere in the Don Valley and Riverdale Farm is no exception. We spent most of last week's session removing some of it from one of the slopes. For the time being, we were just pulling it and trying to remove as much of the roots as possible in the process. This method of removal will have to be repeated over several years before we can get rid of it but we're just doing what we can for now. I found an information fact sheet from the city on the subject which is very helpful to better understand the problem of invasive species.

Planting and Japanese Knotweed galore

Planting on the hillside

Murky Sanctuary pond

The stewardship season at Riverdale officially started on Tuesday. Quite a few people showed up, I would say at least a dozen, which was good because we had some planting to do. The Riverdale site is mostly on slopes and that's where most of the plantings take place This makes things somewhat more complicated so the more people who show up, the better.

We planted Red Oak, Eastern White Pine, Dogwood and Eastern Hemlock.

Eastern Hemlock

Since so many people showed up, the planting was all done in less than an hour, so the rest of the time was spent removing Japanese Knotweed for the most part.

Later, the team had the pleasure of observing wood ducks in one of the ponds. Unfortunately, they were too far to take a good picture, but we observed them with binoculars.

The pond itself is looking a bit clearer than before, now that the aerator is on every night. This device was installed last year to increase the level of oxygen in the ponds.

Stewardship starting next week

This is a new blog for the Riverdale Farm Community Stewardship team organized by Green Toronto. I was part of this team in 2006 and I will post items throughout the summer to talk about the various activities that will take place. Here's a sample of the kind of activities that the stewards might take part in.

In August 2006, the team took part in a monitoring session of the sanctuary pond to study the water quality of the site. The study involved taking samples from the pond and collecting insects from these samples.We worked with members of Citizens' Environment Watch, which organizes community-based ecological monitoring and stewardship programs. They use benthic inverterbrates, or "water bugs" as biological indicators to assess water quality. In order to collect these samples, we had to get into the pond wearing hip waders and using nets to try to pick up as many "bugs" as possible.