From home gardeners to professional landscapers and even the local municipality, people are starting to go wild for native plants.
The staff and students at Ladysmith Secondary School in the Land and Language course are excited to see their plants taking hold. Students have started several indigenous gardens both inside and outside the school. The indoor gardens are in raised garden boxes, built by the students, and are on wheels so that the indigenous plantings can be moved around for viewing.
The outside garden was first created more than 12 years ago, but had been let go. Earlier this spring the students resurrected it and have planted vegetation that has been native to the local area for thousands of years. Some of the plants, not normally known to folks nowadays, that the students planted are camas, liquorice fern, and wild ginger.
Part of the outdoor gardens is a Garry oak tree.
“It was planted as part of a Tree Canada grant program,” said Shelley Gvojich, principal of the school. “I was here back then when we did the program and we tried then to have native plantings, that area was just weeds so we put in the path, but other than the oak the rest is gone. It was pretty cool, it was all student led."
One of the students involved in the new, natural venture, is Bee Peterson a Grade 11 student at the school.
“I thought that it was beautiful that we were going to be having native plants rather than plants brought from all over the world. I felt that was so beautiful that we were trying to connect with the land again, and so I decided that, yeah, I wanted to be a part of that,” she said. “So I'm learning about plants that are indigenous to here. I'm learning about what they were used for, when they grow, what they look like. I've been doing some illustrations of a few plants. I'm making a little booklet right now. I’m also recording their home of names, what those names mean, stuff like that.
“One of the reasons why I was doing this whole plant project is because my nana, we used to go on walks through our neighbourhood in Vancouver, and she'd always point out plantings to me," Peterson said. "And she would tell me every time, every single walk, I've heard this repeatedly, she would tell me to chew up a certain plant and put it on a cut or whatever it is to heal it. And I never really learned to recognize all the plants, even though she had told me this so many times. And now I'm learning how to recognize them and how to use it. And then the same with honeysuckles when I'd go on walks with her, we'd stop and we'd get the honeysuckles and we'd suck the nectar out of them. It is very sweet.”
Peterson is taking science courses as part of her curriculum, including biology.
“I'm writing about them and illustrating them," she said. "I'm doing sort of field study, and then I make the pages, I put the drawings on them, I write the stuff, and then I bring it to my teacher and she gets to learn about those plants. What they're used for.”
Jessie Winter, one of the educators at the school, has brought his passion for home gardening to work.
“Bringing this better way of life to the students," he said. "What Bee said, I know I have a family past where my grandpa and great grandpa always were gardening. So it kind of snuck into my life and I do enjoy it a ton. So that piece was always there. And then through raising my own kids, going out and walking and finding and identifying plants and getting interested in that....Then as well at the school here, being an educator hearing Bee’s story about how she's using all of those plants in her classes there is like, that's the reason. As an educator, that's so real and authentic and valuable, and joyous. So that's the educator piece.”
William Taylor, another educator at the school, and co-founder of the Land and Language program, said the plants have been used for thousands of years in the Indigenous community.
“They were used for food, clothing, medicines and a variety of things…they were everyday staples and they grew in a variety of places in the Oyster Harbour area.”
To launch the new land awareness and plantings the school needed some expertise and something to put the plants in. TaylorMade Landscapes donated the soil and the owners of Kiki Nursery supplied a lot of the native plantings.
"Their knowledge of the plants, their history and how to use the plants was a huge resource for us,” said William Taylor, one of the Land and Language educators.
All the plantings have stakes beside them with the traditional Hul'qumi'num' name on one side and then the colonized names on the other.
The program is part of addressing the district goal of Truth and Reconciliation with First Nations, said educator Karmyn Powell.
When some of the plants,in the indoor gardens grow too large, such as a bed of camas, the plan is to move them outdoors to the regular gardens.
“The Garry oak ecosystems are in danger in our area, so it’s great that we can be a part of assisting with the well being of what we have,” Powell said.
