Articles from: 2014Milkweed – Good news for Monarchs!London Free Press March 11, 2014 Go ahead: plant a milkweed, save a monarch. The milkweed plant soon will be yanked from the province’s “noxious weed” list that would ordinarily require it be destroyed on crop-land. Taking its place on the bad-plant list will be the quirkily named dog-strangling vine. That’s a double score for butterfly lovers, who say the mandatory destruction of milkweed and the invasion of dog-strangling vine have contributed to an alarming population drop the queen of the butterflies. Milkweed “is very, very important to monarchs. Their caterpillars eat only milkweed,” says Ann White of London, who is the butterfly count co-ordinator for Nature London. But the plant has been vanishing from farm fields, field fringes and pastures, assisted by a provincial weed law that encourages herbicide treatment to prevent its spread. White and other vocal lepidopterists have been lobbying the Ontario Agriculture Ministry for the changes. Ministry spokesperson Mark Cripps said the proposed move is also an effort to improve the Ontario’s biodiversity. Farmers so far haven’t objected, although the province is still receiving public comments to its environmental registry until April 14. The invasive dog-strangling vine – a perennial that can grow as high as two metres but, despite its name, poses no threat to dogs – crowds out other plant life and is a menace in its own right. Monarchs often lay eggs on its leaves but their larvae can’t survive on the plant, Cripps said. “It interrupts the monarch life cycle,” Cripps said. Monarchs breed in Canada and the U.S. but migrate to a small forest in a mountainous area of Mexico, where they over-winter. There, their habitat is also being destroyed and the over-wintering population last year was calculated as the smallest in 20 years. Noxious weeds: Defined as plants harmful to living things (crops, livestock) and injurious to health.
Garden Tour 2014The Lambeth Horticultural Society have their
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Award | Winner | |
1. Best Rose in the show | The Maud Hill Silver Bowl | Sarah Kelly |
2. Best Large Flowered Rose | Red Rose Tea Trophy (Sec. A) | Michael Coleby |
3. Best Clustered Flowered Rose | The Margaret and Cecil Wright Trophy (Sec. B) | Maureen Coleby |
4. Best Climbing Rose | The Charlotte & Harold DeLagran Award (Sec.C) | John Obeda |
5. Best Miniature Rose | The Bob Whitlock Award (Sec D &E) | Sarah Kelly |
6. Best Antique Rose | The Harry McGee Award (Sec.F) | John Obeda |
7. Best Shrub Rose | The Evelyn & Melvin Jenkinson Award (Sec. H) | Sarah Kelly |
8. Best Overall in Design Classes | The Reg & Ruth Dodson Award (Sec.L) | Irina Code |
9. Highest Points in Design Classes | The Joyce McGee Award (Sec.L) | Crystal Trojec |
10. Highest Points in Cut Flowers | The Mary Galloway Award (Sec.K) | Veronica Richards |
11. Highest Points in the Show | The Lambeth Horticultural Society Award | Sarah Kelly |
12. Highest Points for Roses entered by a Novice | The Wm. Saunders Rose Society Award | Marg Holmes |
ATTENTION ALL GARDENERS!
Pollinators are the animals that pollinate over 90% of all flowering plants, and primarily include bees, flies, buterlfies, moths, and other insects. “These beneficial insects are under pressure from loss of habitat, loss of food sources, disease, and pesticides” Pollination Guelph
According to a recent study by the Friends of the Earth, most of the plants sold at garden centres are contaminated by pesticides called NEONICOTINOIDS. Neonicotinoids are poisons that impair the nervous system of insects and are linked to the decline of pollinators. Neonicotinoids permeate all parts of a plant including the nectar and pollen. Unfortunately, pollinators collect this poisoned nectar and pollen to bring back to others in their hives and dwellings.
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:
Grow bee-friendly plants, preferably native species, in your gardens.
Ask garden centres to sell neonicotinoid-free vegetable and bedding plants. Let the nursery know you will not buy plants grown with these pesticides.
More information at the Ontario Beekeepers Association.
Purchase organic vegetable and bedding plants or grow your plants from untreated seeds for your vegetable and flower gardens.
Buy organic food whenever possible. Organic growing methods are much less harmful to pollinators.
A.C.E. (Advisory committee to the environment) has approached the City of London on providing more forage and habitat areas in park lands and the creation of habitat corridors between forage areas.