Inglewood woman leads movement to install pollinator garden

June 23, 2022 · 0 Comments

Sabrina Valleau hopes other villages will be inspired to install their own gardens.

By Zachary Roman

There’s a buzz about a new garden in Inglewood.

A pollinator garden was installed there in front of the Caledon Public Library’s Inglewood branch on June 5. Leading the effort to get the garden in place was Village of Inglewood Association (VIA) vice-chair Sabrina Valleau.

She explained she had the idea for the garden back in 2019 when she was taking a course on environmental governance at the University of Guelph. There, she said she learned that pollinators are responsible for the reproduction of 90 per cent of three-quarters of the world’s food supply.

“That really struck me as a very frightening stat,” said Valleau, since she knew pollinator populations are in decline.

Valleau is an employee of the Region of Peel and stays active following local government. When she heard about a grant called the Caledon Green Fund, she approached the VIA’s chair, Dan Venafro, and asked if he had any plans to use it yet. Valleau got the go-ahead to take her pollinator garden idea and run with it, and that she did.

A pollinator garden is planted with specific nectar- and pollen-producing plants to attract pollinating insects known as pollinators — such as bees, for example. The garden installed in Inglewood features plants that grow naturally in the area, which helps with maintenance and insect attraction, said Valleau.

Another reason Valleau was inspired to lead a pollinator garden project was her time as a resident member of the Town of Caledon’s Climate Change Action Plan Task Force.

“I ran some workshops in the community here and in Caledon Village, and a lot of the questions that came out of the residents were, you know, ‘what can I do? What’s within my power?’… It was like, well, you know, this is something that you can do. Plant some seeds, grow some native wild plants and support your local pollinators,” said Valleau.

Valleau’s desire was to not only install the garden, but to make it a community event too, where people could learn about pollinator gardens and take those skills to their own homes — something Valleau said she’s seen people doing now.

“For me, one of the most important things was to have that community focus and to be able to gather people and get them out here and put their hands in the ground,” she said. “I learned a lot because I was out here with my garden experts, which are volunteers from my community. I had an amazing team behind me.”

Valleau gave thanks to these experts. One was a woman named Lucille Weber, who was responsible for picking out and buying most of the plants for the garden. There was also Karen McKinney, who runs her own landscaping business in Inglewood. Additionally, Julie Pomeroy from Alton was interested in helping as her community had done their own pollinator garden.

The June 5 planting event featured more than just digging.

A barbeque was set up and food provided to attendees by local real estate agent Michele Skawski, and there was sidewalk chalk for kids to draw pollinators with in the parking lot. There was also “nature crown” making activity for kids, and a booth from the library with educational resources and information about the library’s seed exchange program. Almost every VIA member was there too.

“It was a beautiful day which was perfect. What was really cool is just as we were putting the last of the plants in and things were starting to wind down, we had a service bee, two bumblebees, three silvery blue butterflies and one eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly show up and start enjoying the garden,” said Valleau.

Before the June 5 event, there was preparation on the garden site that needed to be done. Newspaper was put down to help kill any weeds, and fresh soil and mulch was placed on top of it. Wood chips were used to create walkways throughout the garden space. Valleau said her three daughters were a big help during this process, making sure that when June 5 came all people had to do was dig and plant.

She explained a rain barrel for the garden was donated from Area Councillor Lynn Kiernan out of her own pocket. A large stone from Glen Echo Nurseries was financed by the Town of Caledon and now serves as a bench in the garden.

Ever since the garden was installed, it’s been watered and maintained every few days by volunteers. Part of the Caledon Green Fund money was used to purchase a hose that reaches from the back of the library branch to the garden.

In the future, Valleau plans to incorporate the garden into Inglewood community events. She also plans to host maintenance days and add more plants to the garden.

Valleau hopes coverage of the garden she and her community installed will encourage other communities to do the same. Something else people can do to help pollinators is let their lawns be a bit more “wild”.

“There’s been this push for ‘No Mow May’ — just for the month of May, don’t bother with the lawnmower,” said Valleau. “Leaving the dandelions while they’re still flowering and yellow actually supports our bees, they love to feed off of them.”