Ruby Meadowhawk Dragonfly, by Ron Rowan

On Sunday, August 25th, at 2pm, we are hosting a free workshop called “Learning Dragonflies and Damselflies”. This event will be presented by Brenda van Ryswyk and is part of the UBG’s Summer Education Series.

Dragonflies and Damselflies, or Odonates, are powerful hunters, performing amazing feats of aerial agility to gobble up scores of smaller insects. Their life cycle is fascinating, beginning underwater before crawling to land, shedding their skins, and taking to the air.

We are fortunate to have an amazing diversity of these creatures in the garden.  Brenda van Ryswyk is a Natural Heritage Ecologist with Conservation Halton, and in this session, she will teach participants how to observe and identify Odonates, and help us learn to recognize some of the most common species in our area.

Bee Balm flower

This Thursday, August 15th, at 6pm, we invite you to join us in the Urquhart Butterfly Garden to explore the medicinal uses of the plants that grow there with herbalist Julia Hitchcock. Although the UBG is planted with the intention of creating habitat for insects and birds, many of the plants growing there are useful for human health as well.

To use plants as medicine, we must begin by getting familiar with them, and our capacity to work with them grows as our knowledge of them does. From the biggest tree to the smallest weedy herb, we have much to gain by spending time identifying and looking closely at plant-life.

Julia Hitchcock is an organic farmer of veggies, herbs, fruit and
flowers. She has been studying herbs and making and using medicines
for more than five years. Her teachers include Rosemary Gladstar and
Michael Virtolli.

Red-spotted Purple

On Sunday August 11th at 2pm, The Restore Cootes campaign will propose a vision for Dundas and Hamilton to enhance and restore natural areas on the periphery of Cootes Paradise degraded or lost to development.

“Cootes Paradise is at the heart of the city’s ecological recovery,” suggests Restore Cootes’ founder Randy Kay. “There’s so much potential for rehabilitation in places like McMaster’s west campus parking lots, which up until the 1960s functioned as a floodplain for lower Ancaster Creek where it empties into Cootes Paradise.”

This talk will explore issues relating to McMaster’s Lot M, which include the founding of McMaster University in Hamilton, the relationship between McMaster and the Royal Botanical Gardens’ properties, and will touch on Cootes Drive, electric railways, pioneer cemeteries, lost ponds, and “ghost” trails, the Parking or Paradise campaign and restoration along the Desjardins Canal.

The lecture will be co-presented by Randy Kay and Dr Jim Quinn, professor of biology at McMaster University and longtime environmental activist and conservationist. It will take place in the Urquhart Butterfly Garden, rain or shine.

For more information about the Restore Cootes campaign, visit restorecootes.blogspot.ca.

Question Mark

Saturday August 3rd at 11am the Urquhart Butterfly Garden will be holding its first ‘Free Guided Butterfly & Bird Identification Walks ‘ at the Garden. Join naturalist Matthew Mills to discover the diversity of life at the Garden.

Butterflies come in many sizes, some as big as your hand and others as small as a fingernail. Some butterflies are drab and shy others are bold and colourful, like the well-known Monarch butterfly. Visitors who walk through the Garden quickly are likely to see nothing but Cabbage Whites, but visitors who spend time at the Butterfly Garden are often rewarded with unusual sightings. Continue reading →