Comox Valley Nature is sponsoring a special all-day event at Steller Raven Ecological Farm that will highlight native plant gardening techniques and research into the potential of such gardens for carbon sequestration. The public is invited to attend this free event:
Date: Saturday, June 15, 2024 Time: 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. PT Location: Steller Raven Ecological Farm, 3177 Kentwood Road, Courtenay Host: Dr. Royann Petrell
Features
Tour existing native plant gardens and new experimental gardens
Speak with experienced gardeners
Learn how to convert lawns into native gardens
Learn about the carbon sequestration process
Seeds and plants for sale
Tour sign-ups
You can sign up online in advance for one of the guided tours planned throughout the day. The number of participants in each tour is limited, so signing up is recommended. See the selection of times and sign up for one on our Events page.
For more information
On April 28, Royann gave a talk on this subject at CVN’s monthly general meeting. The announcement for that meeting briefly describes how she transformed her small farm using native plants, and how that led to her investigations into sequestering carbon. Subsequently, we posted her slides from that talk which you can download.
Comox Valley Nature members and the general public are invited to CVN’s May general meeting for the following keynote presentation:
Title: Understanding our Watersheds “One Puzzle Piece at a Time” Speaker: Dave Weaver (Beaufort Watershed Stewards) Date: Sunday, May 26, 2024 Time: 7:00 p.m. PT Location: Main hall of Comox United Church, 250 Beach Drive, Comox
This 45-minute information session will present what the Beaufort Watershed Stewards are all about—their intent, how they are structured, what activities they do and where, the processes they use and/or follow, and where they intend to go in the future. This is an all-volunteer non-profit organization that has grown very quicky and has achieved much in it’s first 7 years—first by slowing walking, to now actually running at full steam—one puzzle piece at a time.
Two case-study programs will be highlighted briefly—the Hydrological Cumulative Effects Assessment Program and the Aquifer Mapping Program. The intent is to give the audience an overview of the details involved and the expected outcomes, ultimately aiming to better understand how our watersheds function.
About the speaker
Dave Weaver has had a varied career, working in forestry in BC for 37 years for many organizations. He was a Registered Professional Forester (RPF) since 1981 and has now resigned from this association when he retired in 2016. He started his career on Vancouver Island, working for MacMillian Bloedel Ltd, as an Area Forester for 11 years. He then moved with his family to Smithers in the BC interior and worked in silviculture and planning as a forest consultant for 14 years. Within this period, he worked 9 years as part-time College Forestry Instructor and for 10 years he logged on weekends as a hobby as a woodlot licensee. During the last 12 years of his career he worked for the Provincial Government in Silviculture Policy and Legislation, in Smithers and finally back on the Island in Victoria.
Currently in retirement, he is the President of the Beaufort Watershed Stewards. He assists with the administration and stream sampling and leads the Forestry Subcommittee of this group.
Red-flowering currant in Mack Laing Park (Photo: V. McIntyre)
The Botany/Mycology Group was privileged to have Marta Donovan lead the group in a very informative walk through MacDonald Wood Park and Mack Laing Nature Park in Comox on April 9.
Marta is a professional botanist who recently retired after working for 26 years for the BC Conservation Data Centre, a program for the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. She compiled the provincial list of plants in BC, assessing their conservation status and mapped the locations of species at risk in the province.
The two parks, while close together, evidence somewhat different environments and plant communities, and Marta very usefully pointed out the differences. She highlighted many characteristic plant species in each park in the context of the structural layers of the forest.
Following the practice started with the group’s March walk at the Tsolum floodplain, group co-leader Véronique has created very useful photographic identification guides to most of the species observed on this walk using her own photos and additional research. You can download the two guides (one for each park) here:
At Comox Valley Nature’s general meeting on April 28, the keynote presentation by Royann Petrell on “Native Plant Gardening and Carbon Sequestration” was well-attended and stimulated an interesting discussion. Some audience members expressed an interest in seeing the slides again, and Royann has kindly allowed them to be distributed. You can download the slide presentation here (PDF, 15.8 MB).
For more information about Royann’s work at her Steller Raven Ecological Farm and an event at the farm in June promoting native plant gardening, see this earlier post.
From Hand-in-Hand’s website: “Hand-In-Hand Nature Education is an outdoor educational program located in the Comox Valley and Campbell River that is designed to offer a unique learning experience for children who are walking to 17 years old.”
Jarrett Krentzel, founder and director of Hand-in-Hand and a former Vice President of Comox Valley Nature, recently reached out to CVN to solicit the donation of nature-based items for their annual silent auction. The auction’s proceeds go to their In-House Subsidy Fund which helps children from low-income families participate in HiH’s programs.
If you have nature-related items you could donate, Jarrett requests that you contact him by May 3 at with the following information:
Name of your donation:
Subtitle (optional):
Description of your donation:
Images: Please upload attachment(s)
Fair Market Value (The likely selling price on the market at a specific point in time):
Alternatively, if you would like to make a cash donation, you can do so on HiH’s donation page.
Posted inMiscellaneous|Comments Off on Help out local nature-based education
Nominations for Trees of the Year 2024 ended March 31, and we’ve been busy planning tour routes to help you visit these 27 impressive trees efficiently. Maps of these routes are now available. You can access them using the links in the tables below.
For full descriptions of the individual trees, including tree number, location, a photo, size, and the tree’s story, see this page: Trees of the Year 2024.
If you prefer a guided walk, CVN is also offering a few of these for members and the general public. To sign up for a guided walk, see the Events page.
Please respect private property boundaries and owner privacy by viewing the trees from public land unless otherwise invited in.
The maps
We have three ways for you to access the route maps using the links in the table below:
The route maps were implemented on the PlotARoute website (plotaroute.com) which has multiple viewing options. See some tips below the first table.
If you would like to have printable information, you can download a PDF version of the plotaroute map.
If you like Google maps, we have three special maps for you:
Note that the Grand Tour route encompasses almost all the nominated trees, which (except for #12 and #27) are also in one or another of the shorter routes.
Expand the map to full screen using the crossed arrows at the top right of the map.
Play an animation using the play icon at the bottom left of the map.
Zoom in or out using the + and – icons at the top left of the map.
The length of the route is given in the bottom margin of the map. You can switch between kilometres and miles.
You can also find these routes any time by going to plotaroute.com and searching for “toty 2024”.
Collections of routes
Each individual route is also included in a plotaroute collection. All the routes in one collection can be shown on one map. In the table below the map, select the route or routes that you want to see. The table below refers to the individual routes by their designations in the first table.
Comox Valley Nature invites the public to our in-person April general meeting as follows:
A native plant garden. (Photo: Royann Petrell)
Date: Sunday, April 28, 2024 Time: 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. PT Location: Main hall of Comox United Church, 250 Beach Drive, Comox Keynote Presentation: Native plant gardening and carbon sequestration Speaker: Royann Petrell
In addition to the keynote presentation, CVN activity leaders will give brief updates so you can learn about our ongoing activities such as birding, botany, and conservation and restoration. If you are new to Comox Valley Nature, find out more about us here. We always welcome new members.
A native plant garden over a grassy lawn is not only beneficial for wildlife and pollinators but also has the potential to sequester carbon. When carbon is sequestered in a garden, carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and held in the soil. The process plays a crucial role in mitigating climate change by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Dr. Royann Petrell (Associate Professor Emerita, University of British Columbia) will provide background material about native plant gardening and some information about an event planned for June 15, 2024 at Steller Raven Ecological Farm. There will be time for questions and discussion from the audience.
Royann worked on a carbon sequestration research project for Project Watershed for three years and became very interested in how the process works. Royann and her husband Sylvain have been rehabilitating much of their 7.5 acre Steller Raven Ecological farm with native shrubs and trees, wildlife trees, ponds and streams, and over the last five years, native Vancouver Island grasses and flowering plants. Plants most suitable for carbon sequestration are long-lived and rooted perennials that are adapted to our wet winters and hot and dry summers.
Sapsucker feeding on a native bitter cherry. (Photo: Royann Petrell)
To date, 95 bird species have been observed on the farm, and many breed there. Recently 16 bee hives have been installed. In early spring the bees collect pollen from willows and native flowering shrubs! Royann is keen to describe her progress and delight in how to plant a carbon-sequestration native garden. Her hope is that native gardening will catch on for the betterment of the Comox Valley.
Volunteers will be needed to help out at the June 15 event. A list of volunteer positions will be available for people to sign up at the April 28 meeting. Funding for the June event is from a BC Nature Donor grant.
The nomination period for CVN’s Trees of the Year 2024 event ended on March 31. Once again we’ve seen how passionate and observant you, our community members, are for the trees around us in both our urban and rural environments. This year, you nominated 27 trees to celebrate, including specimens of 11 different species.
Here’s how the nominations broke down among those species, most frequent first:
Douglas-fir (8)
Bigleaf maple (5)
Garry oak (3)
Western redcedar (3)
Sitka spruce (2)
and one each for (in no particular order) western white pine, flowering cherry, grand fir, arbutus, English walnut, and weeping sequoia.
You can read the stories and see photos of all these special trees here.
To whet your appetite, below is a sample of the photos (click a phot to enlarge it). Coming soon will be a post with maps of suggested routes for visiting these wonderful trees in person.
The Botany/Mycology Group had a well-attended field trip on March 12 to the Tsolum River floodplain trails adjacent to the Comox Valley Exhibition Grounds to see signs of early spring growth.
The new leaders of the group, Véronique M. and Karen C., are adopting a new educational approach to field trips. They pre-selected a few species to focus on, with the aim of having group members learn to identify them. To this end, Véronique followed up with an illustrated guide to the focus species as well as to some additional species that were observed.
Title:Seed-based Restoration for Urban Settings on Vancouver Island Speaker: Kristen Miskelly (Satinflower Nurseries) Date: Sunday, February 18, 2024
If you missed this event or would like to see it again, CSEB has made the recording available here. To access it you will need to provide your name and email address.
For more information about this talk, see the announcement in our earlier post.
To celebrate our 60th anniversary we invite you to come for a guided stroll on the Courtenay Riverway Heritage Walk with a member of Comox Valley Nature on April 24, 10 am -noon. Learn about the history of this area, including how the former sewage lagoon has become one of the most popular walking spots in the Comox Valley. Check out the restoration work that has replaced invasive plant species and added more native plants, shrubs and trees that is being done by Comox Valley Nature in partnership with the City of Courtenay. Hear why invasive plant species are so damaging to the ecosystems. Enjoy the view from the "lookout" over the estuary and be reminded how important the estuary is to the web of life.REGISTRATION required on our events page cvnature.ca/events An easy 1 km walk on a wheelchair accessible paved path. Dress for the weather and bring a water bottle Sorry, no dogs. This event is free, but donations are welcome.For more information, add your name to a wait list or to cancel your reservation email: . ... See MoreSee Less
To celebrate our 60th anniversary Comox Valley Nature is offering this opportunity to get together with knowledgeable birders to share skills and learn more about birding in the Comox Valley.This outing is designed for beginners, but birders of all levels are welcome. Experienced birders will help with identifying species, equipment, useful apps, and field guides. Both CVN members and the public are welcome on this walk at the Courtenay Airpark which will be on a wide smooth pathway for about 2km round trip. Bring binoculars if you have them. Dress for the weather. Warm clothing necessary – it’s often windy there! Please leave pets at home.Register through our events page at This event is free. Donations welcome.#birding#comoxvalley#iba#courtenay airpark ... See MoreSee Less
To celebrate our 60th anniversary we offer this opportunity to learn more about Garry oaks in the Comox Valley.Vanier Nature Park is home to a small grove of Garry oak trees which is being stewarded by Comox Valley Nature. These oaks are at the northern extent of their range, and are a remnant of a culturally modified ecosystem that once covered 160 square kilometres in the Comox ValleyThis walk will be lead by Geologist Bob Hauser and Forester Terry Lewis. They have spent many hours in the park removing invasive holly. Terry and Bob will look at the work in progress in the grove and share their unique perspective on this forest, with a focus on soil science and tree species.The Vanier Nature Park project is being co-managed by Comox Valley Nature and the City of Courtenay with funding from the City of Courtenay, BC Nature and the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation. Registration required through The walk is partially on level ground with some gentle to moderate uphill walking on a forest trail that has some uneven footing. No dogs please.For more information, to add your name to a wait list or to cancel your reservation, email: Details of the meeting place will be sent to registrants. Please be at the meeting spot at least 10 minutes before the walk starts to sign in. ... See MoreSee Less
