The last two weeks of May have been busy for the covenant volunteer team. Taking advantage of the nice weather, we visited several covenanted properties to check on their ecological condition and to perform a little invasive species removal as well. On May 23rd, we visited Ayum Creek Regional Park and walked a small covenant area bisected by the river. In the riparian area around the creek, we checked for invasive species and removed them as much as possible. Next, we went to a small privately owned property in the Highlands, protected from development by a covenant by the owner. This one relatively small site contains three small rocky hilltops, surrounded by Douglas Fir forest and draining into a wetland area. Within our visit we saw a large range of biodiversity, from Pacific Tree Frogs in the wetland, to Douglas Fir veterans, to Arbutus and Garry Oak meadows at the top of the hills. Due to the proximity to the road, we also came upon Scotch Broom, which we were able to clear from the most sensitive ecological areas.
On May 30th, we visited three very different covenant areas. We started at a property on the Gorge waterway that was the site of a complete beachfront restoration plan in partnership with the University of Victoria restoration program. The site was donated to the City of Victoria with a covenant to ensure it remains in restored condition after the sea wall was replaced with a naturalized landscape. We found the native shrubs, Nootka Rose, Snowberry and Ocean Spray thriving with invasive species in close quarters. We removed English Ivy, Thistle and Himalayan Blackberry from the small site to ensure the restoration project stayed on track. The second visit of the day was to Welland Legacy Orchard, in View Royal near Victoria General Hospital. This site contains over 200 varieties of apple trees, quince, Japanese pear and other fruit trees, planted over 30 years by the late Rex Welland, who donated this site to the Town of View Royal. TLC volunteers assisted Lifecycles Project staff with the building of a hugelkultur, or mound to suppress the growth of Himalayan Blackberry and for future planting of blueberry and other vine species. Lifecycles Project is the manager of the site and has built a new tool shed and teaching room on the site, installed irrigation to maintain the orchard and is constructed a composting toilet with access to the Galloping Goose bike trail. Our last stop of the day was to a marsh adjacent to Glen Lake that was protected with a covenant with the land was donated to the City of Langford as a park. The Nona Butts marsh is an important wetland area that is inaccessible even to our monitoring crew. It is important to preserve small wetland areas such as this area for their ecological biodiversity, even though as a “park” they are not open to the public.
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