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Old Man Creek Nursery
A lovely open area at Old Man Creek Nursery just north of Sherwood Park where we are growing over 150 different species of native wildflowers, grasses and sedges.
Most people think of a nursery as a greenhouse, but our nursery is a small section of a large field just north of Sherwood Park on Clover Bar road.
So far we have over one hundred species of native wildflowers, grasses and sedges growing there, and more will be added this spring. The land is part of the City of Edmonton's Tree Nursery.
We are very fortunate that the City is allowing us to use this land. In return we donate plants and seeds to City projects, school naturescapes and community groups.
If you know of a school or community group who would like plants, please let me know.
We use the nursery for several purposes. We grow out locally rare plants to return to the wild. We grow some plants to use as a seed source so that we can build up a seed bank of certain species. In other instances the nursery becomes the new home of rescued plants. We also use this space to experiment and discover new native flowers and grasses that would be suitable for gardens.
TASKS: Hand weeding, hoeing, watering, transplanting, mulching, seed collection.DATE: Twice a week - once during the day on Thursday and one evening to be determined by involved volunteers. We start in May as soon as the ground is dry enough to work.
SKILLS REQUIRED: A love of plants and gardening. You'll learn the rest as you go!
VOLUNTEER COMMITMENT: Whatever time that you can spare - some people come once a week, others come once or twice a season.
BENEFITS: Free plants, seeds and expertise; learn more about the native plants that we're growing; weekly tour of blooming plants; free veggies from the veggie patch; raid the saskatoon berries; spend time with friendly people and ample access to fresh country air. Car pooling is also available (preserve fresh country air!) and a gas allowance of $5 per car per trip.
Here are the directions. I will make sure the gate is not locked, it will just appear locked.
Open the gates and close them in the same way behind you, or just come in by the garden plots and trial bed plots
and follow the track into the nursery.
DIRECTIONS TO THE OLD MAN CREEK NURSERY
Get onto the Yellowhead Highway going East.
Take the right exit marked Clover Bar Road. (Before highway 21)
Go north (right) on Clover Bar Road for about a kilometer.
You will first pass a Greenhouse on your left then
you will go over a set of railway tracks.
After a while you will see an auto wreckers on the left and new construction.
Start looking on your right for the sign in the driveway saying "Old Man Creek Nursery".
It's quite hidden and you might be past it before you spot it.
There is a railway crossing sign just past the entrance so
if you go over the second set of tracks, you have gone about 100 yards too far.
Go up the driveway, through the gate and turn left past the administrative building.
Follow the track all the way down to the end and around to the right and
you will see the plot on your left behind a wire fence.
Park by the wheelbarrow and pile of wood chip mulch.
2007 update
We had another successful year at the nursery thanks to all the wonderful volunteers who came out to help.We were able to keep on top of the weeding, transplanting, watering and seed collecting.
I have finished the year end inventory and we now have over 150 different species represented at the nursery!
Some highlights of the year.
1) Monarch butterflies were spotted on several occasions. We now have lots of Meadow Blazingstar flowers to attract them,
and
I hope to grow more Low Milkweed for the Monarch caterpillars to feed
on next year. We only have a small patch of Milkweed as yet.
2)
Judith of Arch Greenhouses grew out a lot of rare False Dragonshead
plants for us from seeds that were collected in Fulton Ravine.
We
planted 2 different plots of False Dragonshead in the spring. The plot
on the sunny side of the nursery grew the best and surprised us by
flowering the first year.
These
are very attractive plants with plentiful spikes of beautiful pink
flowers. Although these plants only grow in damp habitats in the wild,
they
seemed to flourish in the drier soil of the nursery. The cultivar of
False Dragonshead is called Obedience Plant and the plants can be
bought at garden centers.
However, after Diana and I saw them for sale, we felt that the wild version was definitely superior.
3)
Another showy flower that we grew for the first time was the
Purple-stemmed Aster. This Aster is similar to Smooth Aster, but the
flowers are larger.
The
plants at the nursery bloomed the first year from seed and were just
covered with lovely purple flowers. Purple-stemmed Aster is another
plant that is only found
in damp habitats in the wild, but it has adapted to conditions at the nursery without a problem.
Surprises
We
had a community vegetable garden for the first time this year. Carol
brought the seeds and planted the whole thing and I added 4 donated
tomato plants later.
Thanks so much Carol for setting up the veggie plot!
Everything
grew like crazy, people went home laden down with veggies and it was
so successful that I think we should devote a whole row to veggies next
year.
We could have the community space again and also extra space for the regular volunteers to plant their own plots.
We
didn't realize it at the time but the veggies were also being enjoyed
by the the local wildlife. I guess I should have suspected something
when Laura
brought her dog, Lupa, and Lupa kept doing nose dives into the Swiss Chard, her tail wagging furiously.
When
we dug up the Swiss Chard at the end of the season we found that we had
accidently deprived several little grey voles of their home.
These cute little critters were wandering around in a state of shock and Judith had to relocate them to the edge of the field.
Challenges
The
beautiful Crowsfoot Violet plants started dying off halfway through the
year. I don't know if they were in too rich a soil or they had a
disease.
We might have to grow some more and try them again. We left the plants to see if they come back next spring.
One
patch of the Slender Blue Beardstongue plants developed a strange rusty
fungal disease and we had to take them all out. Even the little
seedlings were affected.
Colleen
very valiantly dug them out and bagged them all. The plants looked
horrible and quite infectious! Thanks Colleen, that was a tough job!
Next
year we will keep a close eye on the Lilac-flowered Beardstongue plot
as it is only a couple of rows away. The other 2 Beardstongue plots
further west were not affected.
Plans for next year.
The
nursery plot is in great shape and relatively weed-free at the end of
the season, so we won't have to do much bed renovation in the spring.
I have plans to add a lot more seedlings.
You
would think that with 150 species already there that we have most of
the prairie and woodland plants, but there are still lots of species
not yet represented.
Some,
like Nodding Onion, Purple Pea Vine and Golden-aster are quite common.
Others such as Fringed Gentian, White Evening Primrose and Joe Pyeweed
are quite rare.
I hope to add seedlings of all these species and more in 2008.
Some
have already been seeded at the nursery in late fall. We put in seeds
of Gumweed, Golden-aster, Low Milkweed, Pasture Sage, Canada Wild
Rye, Blue Grama Grass,
White
Cinqufoil, Bearded Wheat Grass, Saline Plantain, Giant Hyssop, Pink
Corydylis, Tall Meadowrue, Monarda and some Winter Lettuce for the
veggie patch.
Judith
will be growing out some more species for us next spring. (Thank you
Judith!) And, of course, I have my usual long list of new species I
want to grow out in February.
Diana and Patsy will both be starting their favorites too and some of these will end up at the nursery.
If you would like to grow out some seedlings for the nursery or for the Wood Lily Project next spring please let me know.
ENG
will be having our usual Seed Planting Workshop in February for people
who want to grow their own plants and for people who are growing plants
for ENG.