Mini Meadowfest
Our third workshop is just around the corner. Join us for an afternoon of planting, with artistic pancakes and refreshments provided. Please RSVP if you'll be attending.
Pocket Forest Party
In honour of Earth Day, we are launching the start of our Miyawaki Pocket Forest. With performances by Green Seed Music, Aztec Dance and more, come join us in celebration of our new forest. The event will be held at Richmond Secondary School at the back entrance facing Moffatt Rd. For updates on what else will be in store, follow the RSS Outdoor Learning instagram.
Last Workshop
Thank you to our participants for joining us for the Perennial Transplanting and Gardening workshop. For those who are curious of what we covered, we have a video recapping the important steps.
Member Profile
We at the Garden City Conservation Society want to thank you for your contribution and participation throughout the years. We would like to share member profiles to highlight some of the participants that make up our wonderful society. To start, we would like to introduce Felicity Hummbold:
Felicity Hummbold is one of our special winged members. She joined the Garden City Conservation Society in 2020, when her guardian, also a member but a human, decided it was time Felicity and her two brothers, Freddy and Tommy, become actively identified with this Society, which is so diligent and influential in finding ways to protect the environment.
Felicity, Freddy and Tommy enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship with their guardian – food and tender loving care in exchange for trust, good company and the chance to get up close and personal. A bottle feeder hanging in front of the hall window is Felicity’s favourite place to drink, whereas Freddy and Tommy prefer the saucer feeders in the porch and next to the shed. On rare occasions all three will visit and drink together at one and the same feeder. Freddy and Tommy, like many boys, find it hard to sit still, but Felicity is calm and will sit at the feeder for long periods, making it easy to observe her and take note of her habits and preferences.
One important lesson Felicity taught her guardian was not to be too zealous in cleaning the exterior of the house and in the garden, especially at the time of year when female hummingbirds are building or restoring their nests. Flowers that bloom early, such as dandelions, offer fluffy material essential for nest construction. Other flowers, such as asters, that bloomed late in the year and overwintered in the garden, can provide wispy tufts of chaff. Lichen and bits of moss are also desirable. Spider webs and cobwebs, especially those found in corners of windows and doors, under roof overhangs, are ideal for binding all these components together. They’re sticky and also stretchy, so that as the eggs hatch and the babies grow, the nest expands to hold them securely.
The Hummbold’s guardian has set tomato cages under the feeders and elsewhere around the yard. These are favourite resting places for Felicity, Freddy and Tommy, from which they can take stock of their surroundings and spot whoever else is in the vicinity. There are also plenty of bushes, both big and small, many producing flowers from late spring to late fall. And flowers mean food.
When the temperatures plummet to zero or below, the guardian takes the feeders indoors overnight and hangs them back out a few minutes before civil twilight, that being the time when the Hummbolds turn up for breakfast. There were two freezing nights in the second week of March, which meant the guardian dashed out with the feeders at 6 in the morning. Felicity is always the first to arrive, and a couple of times she’s had to sit on the tomato cage for a minute, waiting for her guardian to turn up with the feeder. But she was never agitated because she knew that food was coming. That’s trust.
Felicity
Tommy
Freddy