Walkers and cyclists who enjoy the Elora Cataract Trailway have noticed a growing number of groves of good-sized native trees.
Appearing on the section of the trail at the First Line east of Fergus are over 150 plantings of red oak, white oak, sugar maple, basswood, elm, trembling aspen, white spruce and pine.
All these trees, as well as numerous native shrubs such as nannyberry have been planted and tended by volunteers with ‘Communitrees’.
The group is working to replace the doomed ash trees along that section of the Trailway and to enhance biodiversity there.
The project’s goal is to provide shade and habitat for native song birds. The group, in partnership with NeighbourWoods, is a community of volunteers committed to planting native trees and shrubs.
Certain native trees and shrubs are found together in nature and form communities. They provide support to each other, as people do in a community and give resilience to the ecosystems they gradually help create.
But there’s a threat to these new trees and to some of our existing native woodlands and hedgerows: buckthorn.
Common buckthorn is a small tree or large shrub native to Europe and Asia. It forms extremely dense thickets and alters the chemical composition of the surrounding soil, threatening the survival of many native forest stands and hedgerows. It is on the ‘most unwanted’ list of Ontario’s Invasive plants.
Volunteers are learning to identify buckthorn and to use the most effective methods for eradication. One very useful implement, capable of actually pulling out reasonably large buckthorn shrubs is ‘the extractigator’.
The Elora Cataract Trailway Association has now purchased one of these implements to work on eradication of buckthorn. ‘Communitrees’ makes use of both of these extractigators, generously loaned to them for this work. Volunteers have had fun attempting to use the implement to extract large shrubs.
To find out about Communitrees or to work alongside other volunteers in the work parties on the Trailway, contact coordinator, Carolyn Crozier at 519-843-3030 or by email at ccrozier@wightman.ca.
