WORKING WITH MOTHER NATURE TO IMPROVE THE ENVIRONMENT
There are many problems in the environment that are hidden and require urgent help and that are going to be very expensive to repair. Let us just give you two simple straight foreword examples.
Jean Drapeau hired in 1954 American Landscapers to save Mount Royal park from soil erosion. The experts planted thousands and thousands of Norway maples trees. When you import non-native plants, you invite the potential for disasters. Norway maples are now illegal to plant in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and part of New York State. Why are they illegal? Nothing grows under a mature Norway maple except young Norway maples.
Since the time of Thomas Jefferson, the American Ambassador to France, Americans and Canadian have been growing a European invasive grass everywhere. It is called Kentucky Blue grass, but it is native to France and Great Britain. It poorly if at all supports Canadian fauna and flora. It usually requires chemicals which pollute our environment, fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, etc. It is a economic superstar for nurseries, hardware stores and chemical factories. But it’s contribution to the environment is a disaster. It is a major reason why you no longer see the beautiful warbler spring migration each year. Unbeknownst to most, the birds bypass Montreal and fly along the Appalachian Mountains to Tadoussac.
Please visit with us and see our work in Verdun and Notre Dame de Grace. We can talk about our work, but nothing can impress you or disappointment like looking at, walking in, and physically touching our work of the last several years. We are proud of our work helping Mother Nature over the last 5 years in NDG and Verdun. Please visit with us at the greenhouse and the north shore in Verdun and the Benny library in NDG. If you are disappointed, so be it. If you are impressed, please help us help Mother Nature. In the end, it is Mother Nature that will cure the multiple ills that our society has created for the land and the environment
You can get a preview of our work by watching a video done by Radio Canada.
To keep things simple as possible, we would like to inform you of two main themes. The first is to believe in and support Mother Nature. The second theme is to avoid as much as possible herbicides, insecticides, and most man-made chemicals and formulations. In other words to be as organic as possible. We will quote texts from reputable experts in longer texts.
We have started an organisation called RENATUREMONTREAL.CA and we have been working the land around the greenhouse in Verdun and the Benny Library in NDG. Usually, weather permitting, we will be working 7 days a week at either place. We should warn you that Oz had stroke last year and his memory is not as good as it used to be. Oz Obukuro is 80 years old and his wife is Joan and she is 75. MOTHER NATURE TRIES TO DO THINGS IN A WAY TO PREVENT MISTAKES. TRY TO FOLLOW HER INSTRUCTIONS AS CLOSELY AS POSSIBLE. WE WILL TRY TO BE AS CLEAR AND SIMPLE AS POSSBLE.
So here are the topic or subjects, we would love you to understand and follow:
- Mother Nature
- Grow native plants and insects and animals
- Stratification. This is how Mother Nature helps plants avoid freezing to death over the winter, but can grow when the warm weather arrives in the spring.
- Caterpillars. The real baby food for wild native baby birds are only caterpillars.
- 70 % rule for acceptable food concentration of wild plants to allow birds to thrive.
- Kentucky Blue Grass, are old-time lawn grasses imported from Europe.
- Preparing a wildflower bed in one day instead of the traditional 3 to 4 years.
- Lyme’s disease, a new disease to avoid.
- Contribution of Black people to saving the environment.
- Contribution of Amerindians to saving the environment.
1) Mother Nature
NATIVE North American plants, animals, micro-organisms and insects are essential. An environment, an eco-system has developed over millions and billions of years. Modern man and his new methods of agriculture and technology have developed over hundreds and dozens of years. Many mistakes are made. Thousands of costly examples can be described. And many more are crying for discovery. We want to avoid costly disasters so we will be cautious. We will try to avoid as much as possible chemicals, technology, and machines, but we are reasonable and prudent people and not masochists. Where reasonable and logical we will use labour saving devices and medicines and insecticides to avoid diseases. We avoid dogmatism and foolishness.
Things might appear foolish and awkward, but keep in mind that for Mother Nature, a new ice age in 50,000 years is a sure thing and Montreal will be covered with a mile of ice. So keeping an old fashioned thing like stratification is not so foolish in the long long view. Man may appear to be smart over the short term, but foolish over the long term. Be patient with Mother Nature. She has much she must prepare for.
Native Quebecois plants and native birds and native animals and native insects are threatened with extinction. Homes, parks, highways, all without thought are growing NON-NATIVE, phragmites, canary grass, “Kentucky Blue Grass”, Japanese knotweed, chervil, etc. These are alien invasive weeds from Europe, Asia etc. Walk the Island of Montreal and you no longer see many native wildflowers and plants. You see invasives everywhere. In fact the majority of plants in our parks and shorelines are now foreign invasives. The most egregious is “Kentucky Blue Grass” from Europe. The municipal, provincial, federal governments and their civil servants, deliberately plant foreign invasive weeds especially Kentucky Blue Grass. Thus, the native birds to feed and survive have to deliberately fly past Montreal and most of Southern Quebec. Wild birds to have native insects and native animals and plants to at, have to travel over unfarmable mountains like the Appalachians. That is why we no longer see the thousands of birds we used to see with our friends each spring in the past. The birds now fly past, southern Quebec which no longer feeds them. They go east. They fly and feed along the Adirondacks. At Tadoussac, they finally cross the St. Laurent. They land in the Boreal forests. They take the boreal forests west all the way to British Columbia. THIS EXPLAINS THE DESTRUCTION OF THE SPRING MIGRATION OF BIRDS IN JUST 30 YEARS. HELP US RESTORE THE SPRING MIGRATION THROUGH MONTREAL AND QUEBEC. NOW THAT WE KNOW WHY, WE CAN RESTORE SPRING MIGRATION IN MONTREAl.
That is how spring warbler migration in Montreal was destroyed so quickly. HELP US BRING BACK SPRING MIGRATION TO MONTREAL. WE HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE, MONEY AND TECHNOLOGY TO DO SO.
The bird population has decreased by 30% in numbers and according to the Audubon Society in 2019, “2/3 of North American Birds, 389 species, are at an increasing risk of extinction” A global review in the journal Biological Review found that in 2019, “More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered.”
The latest RoyalBotanicalGarden Kew Gardens report in 2023 for the globe finds “77% of undescribed vascular plants and 45% of known flowering plants estimated to be in danger of extinction.”
A paper in Nature, 04 October 2023 finds that “40.7 % of amphibians are globally threatened with extinction”
Here is one egregious example which involves children. Pulitzer prize winning author, Michael Moss describes in his book, “Salt, Sugar, Fat” how the food industry knew how “artificial food” was causing obesity in children in 1999 and at a secret conference, all food companies except General Mills were willing to change their ways, and stop childhood obesity. Stop the “bliss point” of satiety. Everone except one, was willing to stop child obesity. The CEO of General Mills gave a rousing speech on the free market and the American way and the idea to prevent childhood obesity was killed.
2) Grow native plants insects and animals.
Quebec has had an annual winter freeze for millions of years. So instead of modifying our plants with genetics and technology, let us do the smart cheap thing. Let us not fight Mother Nature, let us help by having a spring planting season for non-native vegetables and fruits and plants.
And let us have a Mother Nature fall planting season for Native Quebecois plants. We have planted native plants this spring. But in the coming fall, we will have a native planting festival.
We have destroyed our spring warber migration by destroying the ecosystem. We will inaugurate a fall planting festival to bring back our environment and our spring warbler migration.
3) Stratification:
Mother Nature knows winter is coming and wild plants need to sprout in the spring, but not in fall. She prepares each wild plant seed with built in strategies and enzymes.
Each seed has a built-in germination inhibitor. This germination inhibitor is destroyed by the prolonged cold and damp of winter. The winter cold and damp, activates slowly enzymes to destroy the germination inhibitor. This is called STRATIFICATION. So, over the fall, winter, the seed is inhibited from sprouting, by built in germination inhibitors. But in the spring, the germination inhibitor has been destroyed and the seed will now sprout.
If you saved the seeds in the fall and kept them indoors at room temp over the winder, you can do 3 things. Plant the seeds like we did, in early spring with enough time for cold weather to stratify the seeds or 2) create an artificial stratification or 3) plant the seeds and wait until the following winter stratifies the seeds and the seeds sprout a year late.
We will teach the general public the basis of STRATIFICATION and will have classes next on native seed collection and planting. We want to eventually have million of native plants growing across Canada. Only in this way will warbler migration return to Montreal. We do not want token plants, we want full beautiful gardens and glorious spring migration of thousands of warbles, many of whom will stay in Montreal to breed.
SAVE THE ENVIRONOMENT. PLANT NATIVES WILDFLOWERS. TEACH PEOPLE HOW TO GROW NATIVE WILDFLOWERS AND PLANTS, ESPECIALLY CIVIL SERVANTS. A VERY SIMPLE SOLUTION IS FALL WILDFLOWER SEED PLANTING.
4) Caterpillars
For native birds such as chickadees and warblers, native wildflowers and plants are essential. We have killed off many native plants, and insects and we no longer see the birds we saw 30 years ago. INCREDIBLY Most warblers and native birds feed their young not worms, not seeds, not adult insects but CATERPILLARS. That is right, CATERPILLARS, which are the larvae of NATIVE BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS. CATERPILLARS ONLY FEED ON NATIVE PLANTS. You need native wildflowers and other native plants to FEED CATERILLARS TO FEED BABY BIRDS.
The beautiful exotic flowers that the hardware and plant nurseries sell are just destroying our environment. Foreign exotic plants do not and cannot feed caterpillars. You need native wildflowers and plants to feed caterpillars. All the beautiful exotic wildflowers are destroying our eco-system. Civil Servants, academic, community groups are growing non-native Kentucky Blue Grass and dandelions and are destroying our eco-system.
Help us grow and RAISE NATIVE PLANTS, FEED CATERPILLARS, FEED BABY BIRDS. It is the only way to restore a healthy eco-system. Presently, native plants are more expensive to find and buy and plant and grow. But they are essential for the eco-system. Native butterflies and moths are becoming rarer and rarer. Monarch butterflies like all butterflies, used to be common, not anymore. MONARCH BUTTERFLIES are now classified as an ENDANGERED SPECIES. We are destroying our eco-system. HELP US RESTORE OUR ECOSYSTEM. VISIT OUR WILDFOWER GARDENS BEHIND THE GREENHOUSE IN VERDUN and NDG. WE NEED VOLUNTEERS. GROW NATIVE PLANTS. CATERPILLLARS ONLY GROW ON NATIVE PLANTS. GROW NATIVE PLANTS. GROW CATERPILLARS.
5) 70 % rule :
Without native plants, the native insects, birds, animals will in general, slowly starve and die off. Douglas Tallamy the ecologist and confreres, in a very expensive 5-year study in the PNAS. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that a yard of less than 70 % native plants would not support the survivability of a normal clutch of chickadees. If your environment had less than 70 % native plants, chickadees would not bother to breed, or many chicks would starve to death. Most yards in Montreal have less than 70 % native plants and we are slowly starving native birds, plants, insects and animals out of existence. The native birds of Montreal bypass Montreal and go directly to Tadoussac, via the Adirondack Mountains. INCREDIBLY, ACADEMICS, THE CIVIL SERVICE, COMMUNITY GROUPS GROW NON-NATIVE KENTUCKY BLUE GRASS AND NON-NATIVE DANDELIONS. HELP US RESTORE THE ENVIRONMENT. THE ENVIRONMENT NEEDS MANY MORE QUEBECOIS WILDFLOWERS.
6) Kentucky Blue Grass
Thomas Jefferson was the American Ambassador to France. He fell in love with a French grass and had it planted in his estate in America. It demanded a lot of care. His slaves like the slave in France, trimmed it with scissors. George Washington and the American rich had their slaves grow the European grass on their estates. The rich in Canada followed suit and grew it in Canada. They called this European invasive, “Kentucky Blue Grass” and now it is growing right across North America and the world. It is non-native and is destroying the eco-system. It requires insecticides, fertilizers, fungicides, watering etc. It is destroying the environment and governments, ecological groups, academics are growing it foolishly. Stop being foolish and stamp out Kentucky Blue Grass. There are native fescues that do not destroy the environment. They sell these native fescues at Urban Seedings as “Eco-Grass.”
DO NOT GROW KENTUCKY BLUE GRASS IN QUEBEC. STAMP IT OUT.
7) Plant a wildflower garden in one day
It used to be recommended to take 3 to 4 years to prepare fields to grow NATIVE wildflowers. Not anymore, you can prepare a native wildflower garden in one day. Just cover the ground with 3 to 4 pages of newspaper. Cover the newspaper with 3 to 4 inches of weedless soil. Spread wildflower seeds over the soil and foot stomp the seeds into the soil. The seeds need to be put down in the fall, winter or very early spring. You can PLANT A NATIVE WILDFLOWER GARDEN IN ONE DAY. You need to water and weed over the summer.
8) Lyme’s disease ticks.
Both the federal and provincial governments have free documents on a recent invasion of ticks, which can cause Lyme’s disease. Please read the provincial and federal documents on the black legged deer ticks.
9) Black people
In the deep American South, I would stop sometimes at a white restaurant. The waitress would politely ask what I would like to eat and politely say it would take time to get fix my table. Much later the waitress would arrive with my meal in a brown paper bag. Sometimes I would arrive at a black restaurant, the waiter would say, they were busy and take my order and that it would take time to prepare my table. Much, much later, my meal would arrive in a brown paper bag.
Malcom X, Martin Luther King and so many other brave souls, put their lives in danger so that black people, but also white people and all people regardless of skin color could be treated with respect. I did hitch hike in the American South from the Atlantic to the Pacific. At night, in long dark stretches, I was so grateful, that the young and old black freedom riders assured that I could travel alone, unarmed, and unharmed. Everyone needs to celebrate what the black did for everyone.
10) Amerindians:
THE WORLD’S OLDEST DEMOCRACY:
The Mohawks believe that the great peacemaker who lived probably in 1142 AD, united the tribes of Eastern North America into the world’s oldest democratic confederation.
There is a podcast, NATURE ARCHIVES, February 2, 2025, about Margo Robbins. a Yurok, a California state tribe member. You can google it and listen to it from the internet. About 10 years ago, Margo Robbins wanted to revive the art of basket weaving on her reserve. The Yurok tribe which is in northern California near the border with Oregon was famous for its’ basket-weaving. The baskets were practical, but also works of art. They were so finely woven they were held water, they carried children, food, were used for cooking and transport and storage. When the American government found the Yurok land, they saw it as a fertile wilderness. To the Yurok, it was not unattended wilderness, it was stewarded land. It was forest gardened with many techniques, but especially controlled burns. Initially, the government, when they saw the controlled burns, saw vandalism and shot and killed the Yurok. Later they passed laws and jailed the Yuroks, often for life. The Yurok did not want to die in prison and gave up controlled burns. For about 120 years, 4 generations, there were no controlled burns, the land deteriorated. The land which used to be 50 % grassland was now less than 1% grassland and the thin forest was now impenetrable dead wood and weedy shrubs and invasive non-native weeds. The elk and deer disappeared.
Over a 10-year period, Margo Robbins and elders learned fire suppression techniques taught by Cal Fire and Indian Affairs. And over the last 10 years have been authorized to have cultural fires.
After controlled fire, the hazel shrubs grew straight and could be used for basket weaving. The pernicious shrubs and deadwood were removed. Fresh grass and wildflowers and small trees could grow. The deer and elk returned. The water table rose. There was an enormous increase in basket weaving classes. Now there was so much weaving material, it could be shared with neighbouring tribes. The Yurok sold the baskets and poverty on the reserve decreased. The Yurok could buy cars and there were many lifestyle improvements. They could hunt deer and elk on their land instead of illegally off reserve.
For 120 years, 4 generations, the land and the tribe deteriorated. Over less than 10 years, by following tradition and Mother Nature’s rules, the land, the wildlife, and the people have changed. Over such a short time such a big change occurred. At almost no cost. Just following Mother Nature, miracles did happen. In the end the hero is Mother Nature. She was waiting 4 generations to be heeded. When everyone listened and heeded her a “miracle” happened.
When people listen to Mother Nature in Montreal, we hope “a miracle” will happen here. It will be different and will depend on what people want to do and have happen. Mother Nature has different priorities in different areas. We in Montreal, will make Montreal the greenest city in North America. We should not let the rich and powerful, the practical, the cynical, design the green city, the green cathedral. What it will look like, what it will be, should and by God, will depend on the minds, heart and soul of the young, the old and the poor.
In 2005, Robin Wall Kimmerer, a member of the Potawatomi Nation, wrote the book “Gathering Moss” which won the 2005 John Burroughs Medal Award For Natural History Writing. In 2013 she wrote the book “Braiding Sweet Grass”. Books such as “The Indigenous Paleo-liths of the Western Hemisphere” by Paulette F. C. Steeves, a Cree-Metis anthropologist and articles by Chelsey Armstrong , a ethnobiologist and archeologist in the Canadian Geographic magazine beautifully tell how to properly shepherd the land.
Amerindians were taller and healthier than Europeans. It was not until guns and gun powder subjugated the Amerindians that their society and health declined. Traditions such as the 3 sister (corn, squash, and bean) and the honorable harvest insured that the Amerindians remained healthy and caring and wise.
There are also beautiful books by Douglas Tallamy and Isabella Tree and her husband Charles Burrows, Judith Swartz, Kristen Ohlson, George Monbiot, David Montgomery, Elinor Ostrom, Michael McCarthy, Cain Blythe, Lyanda Lynn Haupt, Katherine Rundell, Laura Erickson, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Chelsey Armstrong, Val Shuskewich, Rachel Carsons, etc.
The indigenous people of North America have been discriminated against for such a long time. It is a pleasure to see them take their place of honour as leaders of the movement to restore Mother Nature.
Everyone should grow as many native plants as possible. INSTEAD OF DESTROYING NATURE, SAVE IT. The birds, plants, insects and animals will thrive and thank you. We at RENATUREMONTREAL.ca are working to help Mother Nature regain back an ecosystem we have destroyed in just 30 years. HELP US. HELP MOTHER NATURE.
We used to see hundreds of thousands of native birds, and so many native plants, insects and other animals, in Montreal, not anymore. We have lived in Montreal for 50 years. In this short period of time, a little over one generation, we have seen the ecosystem severely degraded and destroyed. Under various governments, and experts, Quebecers had grown non-native plants and has starved the native birds and insects and animals to death.
Perniciously, slowly, quietly, quickly we are killing the eco-system. A generation, 30 years is so fast and so slow, depending on how old, young, impatient you are and what your passions are. In one generation, the birds now bypass Montreal. They now fly the Appalachian Mountains to Tadoussac, cross the St. Laurent River and turn left and fly through the boreal forests to British Columbia. It has taken only 30 years, one generation to do this. Only 30 years to destroy an ecosystem, that has taken thousands, millions of years to create. Academics, the experts, the civil servants, community groups have slowly destroyed Mother Nature, the environment. WAKE UP. It is only old timers like us who notice. We are killing native wildlife, and no one notices and therefore no one cares. WAKE UP !!!!!
Everyone should grow as many native plants as possible. INSTEAD OF DESTROYING NATURE, SAVE IT. The birds, plants, insects and animals will thrive and thank you. We at RenatureMontreal.ca are working to help Mother Nature regain back an ecosystem we have destroyed in just 30 years, one generation, one lifetime. HELP US. HELP MOTHER NATURE.