flora and fauna

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April 10, 2008

Inspired by Odjig

Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, arts and culture, flora and fauna
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I took my lunch hour at the Museum of Civilization the other day, and spent my time at the Daphne Odjig exhibit.  Daphne Odjig is a First Nations woman who was born on Manitoulin Island in Ontario and who went on to become one of the most influential Canadian Artists of her time.  The exhibit covers 40 years of her career as an artist and contains 95 prints ranging from the political to the intimately personal.  She has a lyrical and ultimately optimistic eye and I highly recommend a trip to see this exhibit before it ends on April 20th.  ”Daphne Odjig: Four Decades of Prints” provides an inspiring vision of humanity in harmony with the more-than-human world.  A vision that is sorely needed.

BTW, although it is a special exhibit, it is free with a regular admission ticket.

 

October 23, 2007

Last Week to Visit the Green Exhibit at the Cube Gallery

Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, arts and culture, energy, flora and fauna, transportation
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Ottawa’s Cube Gallery has been hosting a group show of art about the environment for the month of October.  Sculpture, photography and paintings by 15 artists exploring the more-than-human world and humans’ place in it are on display until Sunday October 28th.

I managed to catch a glimpse of the Green Exhibit today (though the gallery is not open to the public Mondays or Tuesdays) and liked what I saw: some industrial landscapes, some wilderness landscapes, some provocative and even disturbing pieces, some reverent and even spiritual pieces.  Definitely worth the trip to the Parkdale Market neighbourhood where Cube makes its home.

In related news, Cube Gallery has recently signed on to source all its electricity from Bullfrog Power, making it the only art gallery in Canada to be green powered.  For you bike-commuters, the Cube Gallery also has a first-rate rack out front that will accommodate up to 5 bikes.

Cube Gallery is open Wednesdays to Fridays 11-6pm and Saturdays and Sundays 10-5pm.

Cube Gallery, 7 Hamilton Ave., North, 613-728-1750

 

July 23, 2007

Field Notes: Swamp Vervain (Verbena hastata)

Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, flora and fauna, organic
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swamp-verbena.jpg

One of the advantages of having a fairly open immigration policy in my organic garden is that I occasionally get a plant moving in who dramatically raises the biodiversity of my yard. I had thought the plant pictured above was a nettle until it bloomed in purple. (I have a fondness for nettles and plan each year to make nettle soup but always forget to harvest the nettles when they are still young and tender and so they flourish unmolested in my garden).

A quick consult of Linda Kershaw’s Ontario Wildflowers revealed the mystery plant was a Swamp Vervain (Verbena hastata), a perennial that is native to southern Canada. Kershaw also relates that Swamp Vervain (as its name implies) prefers moist open areas. My garden is open full to the south but is rarely a particularly moist habitat. I guess the rainy summers we’ve been having the past couple of years have convinced the Vervain otherwise.  According to Evergreen Canada’s on-line database of native plants it is also known as Blue Vervain and is found from Ontario to Nova Scotia.

A note on field notes. I have chosen to include information that I have stumbled upon about the flora and fauna of Ottawa as part of this blog because it is important to me to acknowledge the other beings who make their home here. The least I can do as a member of a multi-species community is learn the names of my neighbours and some of their preferences and dislikes. I have been inspired in this project through reading The Cincinnati Arch: Learning from Nature in the City, a memoir by John Tallmadge in which he relates his own awakening to the co-existence of nature and the urban. He writes that he always prided himself on his knowledge of the flora and fauna of the wilderness areas he vacationed in. However, once he awakens to the presence of nature in Cincinnati, he is appalled by his almost complete ignorance of nearby flora and fauna. As one of his key practices of urban environmentalism, he sets out to learn about the other organisms that live in Cincinnati.  Reading his memoir while sitting on my front porch one summer day, I too was forced to face the level of my ignorance and so I’ve set out to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge.

 

June 24, 2007

Field Notes: Dog Strangling Vine (aka Pale Swallow Wort, Cynanchum rossicum)

Posted by greenlivingottawa under 100-mile, flora and fauna
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swallow_wort.jpg

Here’s another invasive to look out for. I promise I’ll add some new natives soon, but with invasives it always seems more time sensitive. For example, now is the best time to take a chunk out of the Dog Strangling Vine population of Ottawa since most individuals haven’t yet produced their seed pods.

It is thought that this particular invasive made its way from Europe to Canada as a stuffing for lifejackets in the 1930s (Evergreen Canada Database). When it gets established somewhere it spreads both by seeds and by rhizomes, forming dense stands that literally smother out every other living plant. To see how devastating this weed can be once it has taken root check out some of the Fletcher Wildlife Garden’s old field site.

It doesn’t seem to have become a huge problem in Ottawa yet, outside of the Fletcher Gardens, but I have found a couple of patches in my backyard and seen it along a hedgerow in Westboro and along the bike path in Vincent Massey Park. So I would advise checking your own yard for black swallow wort and getting it before it becomes unmanageable. Dog strangling vine is related to milkweed and there is some troubling evidence that monarch butterflies can’t tell it apart from its cousin. Mistaking it for milkweed, they lay their eggs on it. However, the two plants are different enough that monarch larvae starve to death upon hatching because they cannot eat dog strangling vine.

For more info on identifying and controlling dog strangling vine (Cynanchum rossicum), check out Fletcher Wildlife Garden’s incredibly informative pages on renaturalizing gardens and controlling invasives in Ottawa.

 

June 17, 2007

Field Notes: Volunteering at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden

Posted by greenlivingottawa under Ottawa, flora and fauna, volunteering
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lupines.jpg

Mike and I spent this morning doing some volunteer work at the Fletcher Wildlife Garden. The Fletcher Wildlife Garden encompasses a 7-hectare site located between the Arboretum and the Central Experimental Farm. It was started and is still run by the Ottawa Field Naturalists’ Club.

There are several different types of renaturalized habitat in the garden: a couple of woodlots, a large pond, an old field, many hedgerows, several meadows, and a demonstration backyard garden. There is also a sizable interpretation centre with a library of information on local natural history and conservation issues. A great deal of information on the Fletcher Garden as well as on renaturalizing your own garden is available on-line through the numerous pages of their informative web-site.

Walking around the gardens and using the materials of the interpretation centre on-site are free. While the gardens are open 24-7, the interpretation centre is only open weekdays during normal working hours and on Sundays from noon to 4. If you’re planning on going to use the centre resources, it’s probably a good idea to phone ahead just to make sure it will be open.

In terms of the gardens, there are two things to look out for at the moment. First, the lupines are in full bloom in the butterfly meadow and are well worth a visit (see the photo above). Second, although I haven’t seen them, there are a couple of green herons living near the amphibian pond (for photos of the green herons go to the Fletcher Garden blog and scroll down to the May 7th entry, P.S. the green herons aren’t very green).

Fletcher Wildlife Garden, 613-234-6767, fletcher@ofnc.ca

 

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