Last week, the Education and Outreach team worked with Coast Mountain Academy students to remove weeds from a small green space in Squamish. With summer break right around the corner, the kids had plenty of energy to spend a couple of hours with us removing invasive plants as a part of their school’s Annual Service Day.
Together, we tackled a crawling patch of Yellow Lamium, and an even bigger patch of Smallflower Touch-Me-Not. We even found and removed small infestations of Himalayan Blackberry and English Ivy. Can you see all four invasives in the photos below?
Check out the amazing before and after difference!
Before:
After:
You might have noticed that the ground looks pretty sparse in the after photos. The hopes behind weed pulls such as this one is we can provide the space and opportunity for native species to return. Without any help from humans, invasive species easily outcompete native ones and can form dense monocultures, like the Smallflower Touch-Me-Not in the photos above. With repeated removal of invasive plants, native species have a better chance of claiming their space back, increasing biodiversity and food sources for local fauna.
Removing invasive species (even if it’s just a small patch) can make a difference. With a team of 8 kids and 1 teacher, we managed to remove 9 garbage bags of invasive weeds (around 110 kilos!) from this small green space. Thank you to the Coast Mountain Academy for all your hard work!
Thank you to our sponsors
We also thank our funders, including the Whistler Community Foundation, the Squamish Community Foundation, and the BC Hydro Grassroots Grant. Our weed pulls and community events are made possible in part by their generous contributions.
