Written by: Agatha N.
KCI has offered many clubs to the school over the years, and there is a fairly new one to look out for: Roots and Shoots! KCI’s gardening and climate action group focuses on ecology and awareness around the neighbourhood. They have recently created the KW Midtown Food Forest, a five-year strategic plan found on the corner of Park and Glasgow Street, which is open to the public.
Why is there a new garden?
Ms. Galian, a staff sponsor of Roots and Shoots, stated, “We have seen the garden evolve in many different ways over the years of KCI. It was more agriculturally focused before, and continues to be a pollinator garden because that's first and foremost in our thoughts of supporting pollinators.”
What are the specific types of plants growing in the garden?
Some plants in the garden are the Paw Paw tree, Prickly Pear cactus, artichoke, longevity vine, aronia berry, housecaps, hollyhocks, and many more to come, Ms. Galian explained. She also discussed the benefits of some of these plants, such as the Paw Paw tree, which is native to Ontario, does well in shade, and has a tropical taste to its fruit. This garden with its plants brings lots of benefits. Ms. Galian mentioned, “You can see that lots of native wildlife were flocking to the space because they recognize it as a food source for themselves. One of the rules we follow is that if you grow something for your community of people, you will also have enough for your community of wildlife, as well.”
This garden not only supports wildlife and biodiversity, but also newcomers to Canada. “We've noticed some of our newcomers to Canada are passing by and are really excited because they recognize things like longevity vine that's edible and quite drought-tolerant. They get very excited and feel included. So this is a community-building initiative,” Mrs Galian passionately discussed.
Did Roots and Shoots face any challenges in creating this garden?
With a new project always comes challenges to overcome. Ms. Galian mentioned how the Roots and Shoots club had to deal with drought difficulties, rat issues, and invasive plants.
July and August's record-breaking heat brought these drought challenges, Ms. Galian noted: “We needed to address the ongoing severe-ish droughts that we are seeing during the summer. Over the last two summers in particular, we had the challenge of no water and the tap was broken. We had to haul water from the top of the hill down to the food forest area, and so we decided that we would focus on culturally significant and drought-tolerant plants,” she said.
This leads to the issues of rats, Mrs Galian briefly noted: “We had some rat issues as well with the drought difficulties. That's why we had to remove the shed because it had become rat headquarters for a substantial colony. But now that's under control.”
With thousands of invasive plants in the world, the KW Midtown Food Forest has been a garden that has experienced this issue. “Something that we feel strongly about is tackling the invasive bindweed, which is a real sore spot in lots of gardens around our community. It has roots that go ten feet under, and it has seeds that are good for 80 years, and so it's a challenging foe to deal with,” Mrs Galian explained. “So we had to landscape fabric it, temporarily, and we're hardscaping in parts of the food forest because the only way to tackle bindweed is to smother it. We've smothered it with stone, cardboard, mulch, and landscape fabric. We are allowing the good stuff to grow and hopefully defeat the bindweed in the future,” she added.
On a positive note, Mrs Galian proudly mentioned, “We got a grant that was fantastic - the “Love my Hood” grant from the city of Kitchener, which allowed us to provide lots of the plants too. It is a collaboration between the community and the school, which is beautiful.”
Ultimately, the Roots and Shoots club is working hard to make positive changes in and around the school community as they support wildlife, engage members of the community, and promote the importance of native plants through the garden.