Community Projects & Events
The NHS works to complete their own initiatives and objectives but also strives to support the OHA and other local horticultural projects. Members join together for charitable work, garden tours and special events. Please explore the opportunities below and add any dates of interest to your calendar for future reference.
Volunteer Opportunities
Volunteers are required for a variety of community projects. Please contact nepeangardeners@gmail.com if you are interested in helping out.
The Nepean Museum
The NHS has had a long association with the building that is currently the Nepean Museum on Rowley Street. Members have cared for the spacious garden at the side for many years - beginning with a spring cleanup, then deadheading and weeding during the summer, ending with a fall cleanup. Gardening volunteers are welcome to join the team.
In the past few years, members have also trimmed shrubs and cared for the narrow beds between the parking lot and building at the front.
Several NHS members garden at retirement homes, churches and schools. Members, don't forget to track your volunteer hours!
Drawing used with permission from Laura Howell
Butterfly Ranger Program
The NHS has recently been accepted as a participant in the 2021 Butterfly Ranger Program organized by the David Suzuki Foundation. Across, Canada, 1000 participating groups will attempt to establish a minimum of 12 pollinator patches or gardens in their respective communities by October.
More details will be forthcoming in the days and weeks ahead, but if you would like to assist in establishing such gardens as a volunteer gardener and/or as a host of a patch on your property, please contact me at wilsonjohns@rogers.com.
One of the goals of the project is to coordinate with other groups in the Ottawa area and create butterfly pathways or corridors. Such corridors have been established in Vancouver and Toronto.
The pollinator patches have no minimum size, but they must include a minimum of 50% native plants such as the ones listed in this link. In reviewing the list, you may discover you already have such a patch!
One suggestion for creating a pollinator patch is to re-purpose old canoes filled with soil and seeded with plants. If you have one that that you would like to contribute to the project, we may just find a home for it.
Garden Visits & Tours
Each summer, select NHS members offer to open their gardens for visitation. It's inspiring and relaxing to see a wide variety of gardens and get to know an individual member's talents, enthusiasms or specialties.
Garden Tours
Please contact members of the executive to suggest an interesting location to visit. Past garden tours have included:
- M. Ladouceur's Tropical Garden
- Beechwood Cemetery (guided by the landscape specialist)
- Upper Canada Cranberry Farm
- Galetta Roses