Riverview Park has a number of invasive species that are causing our residents (human and non-human) some distress. Check out our invasive species webpage to see some examples.
If you would like to help remove invasive species of plants or to plant native ones, please contact Communications@RiverviewParkCa.com We need lots of help and any amount of time you have to offer would be greatly appreciated. No experience necessary.
Restoration of the Majestic Maple and surrounding area on Hospital Link Road
Riverview Park Pollinator Garden
The Dog Strangling Patch was converted to a Berry Garden in late June 2024.
Riverview Park Pollinator Garden in winter 2024
Photo by Lynne Patenaude
The Joy of Garden Pollinators
The Friends of Riverview Park Green Spaces welcomed neighbours and volunteers to the Grand Opening of the Riverview Park Pollinator Garden on June 24, 2023. Our Councillor, Marty Carr, was on hand to say a few words and open the (tiny!) gate. Thanks to Ottawa Wildflower Seed Library for their generous donations of seeds. Daniel Buckles, who has been instrumental in the development of the pollinator garden, rain garden, food forest and other environmental improvements in Champlain Park, Ottawa, came to participate and donated a favourite book to help guide similar improvements in Riverview Park. Thank you for your support Daniel!
This pollinator garden would not have materialized without the hours and hours of work to get the permits, the materials, the garden design and the planting. The principal actors include Anna Nitoslawska, Lynne Patenaude, and Ron Ridley.
If you want to volunteer your time to help with this and other green space projects in Riverview Park, please contact FoRPGSOttawa@gmail.com.
Who will save this tree?
Work proceeded well over the first season (2023) and a huge trailer-full of buckthorn brush was removed from around the maple tree on Hospital Link. Several piles of brush remain to be removed. Here is a photo taken in February 2024 of the shadows our Majestic Maple makes on the surrounding snow. Several young saplings can now be seen in the vicinity.
This majestic maple on Hospital Link Road is struggling valiantly to survive the smothering and poisoning effects of the Buckthorn that has surrounded it completely. We are hoping that through our Councillor, the City of Ottawa will remove the invasive Buckthorn or permit access to volunteers to remove the Buckthorn and save this tree. The little sapling in the foreground was planted by the City as one of many along the Hospital Link corridor. If the Buckthorn is not controlled, it too will not survive.
Birth of a Pollinator Garden
Fall 2022 we finally received permission from the City of Ottawa to access the meadow area immediately east of the path beside the sliding hill along the Hospital Link road. Our access allows us to remove invasive species and plant native plants. In October 2022, a group of volunteers gathered to prepare and plant a pollinator garden on the site. On October 23rd, we worked in teams, a morning and an afternoon team, to do the plantings as directed by Lynne Patenaude who did the behind the scenes work of obtaining or growing the plants, many from seed and laying out where the plants would go.
Other pollinator patches are in the planning stages and the removal of buckthorn and other invasive species is on-going.
If you would like to volunteer, please email FoRPGSOttawa@gmail.com to let us know if you are interested. Follow us on Facebook
Winter Scene
This tree at Knox and Acton is being slowly killed by Common Buckthorn through its ability to out-compete for nutrients and by chemicals released by the Buckthorn that negatively affect the soil, preventing other plants from growing near it. For more information on Buckthorn, check out the Ontario Invasive Plant Council website.