The ECA, with the City, has been working on a pilot project to restore native plants to the corner by the stairs going up to the community centre. Shari Pitka and Kathleen Stewart worked closely with the city to plan the restoration.
The area is part of the road right of way and had been planted with the standard city grass mix. When the community centre was built some clumps of alder and wild rose were placed in the general area, they have thrived and spread out in several spots. The area at the corner had been colonized by pocket gophers and the only thing still growing there was thistle, sticky weed, mustard, and a few clumps of grass.
City horticulturists devised a planting scheme in 2023 working with our ELM coordinator and chair who took on the project as volunteers. Many ECA volunteers met and planted shrubs and wildflower in 2024. In 2025 the site was cleared of weeds several times and native grass seed was added and watered through the fall. The trick with planting grass is to sow it just before winter so it can get going early in the spring. This spring we had our first weed clean of 2026, it was much better than last year as the grasses and native flowers had dominated growth.
There was still lots of thistle to cut back and stinkweed and goat beard to pull, 4 bags of weed were collected. The horticulturists advised us that the best control for thistle was to cut them at ground level and have them exhaust themselves trying to regrow. Pulling them only gets part of the tap root and encourages more thistle growth in the ground.
Now growing at the site are: native grasses, western mustard, flax, marrow, blanket flower, vetch, saskatoons, and wild roses.
With the taller plants covering the area most of the Northern Pocket Gophers have left, although there seems to be a general dieback in the population of those pests throughout the community. This summer and fall we plan to have more weed pulling events, and we are planning to plant more shrubs and plugs of perennial wildflowers. The restoration project appears to be destined for success, and the learnings can be applied to other areas in the community where weeds have taken over.
Thank you to the city and to all the volunteers who have come out to improve our community.
Below are images of the original clean up and planting of shrubs.
Rick Wierzbicki, June 2026
