Notebook Pollinator advocate, Clement Kent,


makes gardens fit for birds and bees By Janis Wallis


his work in the lab, but for his efforts in the garden. Kent, president of the Horticultural Soci-


Y


eties of Parkdale and Toronto, founded the Pollinator Garden Project two years ago to teach gardeners, members of the public, and school children how to create and conserve habitat for pollinators. A postdoctoral fellow in the Department


of Biology in York’s Faculty of Science & Engineering, he is the only Canadian to receive the award this year from the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign (NAPPC). The NAPPC is made up of more than 120 groups of scientists, researchers,


ork University bee researcher Clement Kent has been awarded the Pollinator Advocate Award of Canada, not for


conservationists, government officials and volunteers who lead programs to protect pollinators. “A pollinator garden is a garden that maximizes chances for food, nesting, and survival, for any kind of pollinator – so we are not focused on just bees, or birds, or butterflies,” says Kent. A pollinator garden “needs to have leaves that caterpillars eat, flowers chosen specifically for humming- birds, and nesting sites like stems, or places in the ground for bees.” He and a team of volunteers have plant-


ed pollinator gardens in Toronto’s High Park and other city parks and they worked through the winter to prepare a pollinator garden for the Canada Blooms garden show last March. “Wild Things in the City: How


Canadian bank partners in creating T


cy to present the “RBC Blue Water Gar- den” at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2012. This is the second year that the team has collaborated, following the suc- cess of the RBC New Wild Garden, which was awarded a Silver-Gilt Medal in 2011. The RBC Blue Water Garden will showcase inventive urban rainwater man- agement in keeping with the goals of the RBC Blue Water Project, a wide-ranging, 10-year global commitment to help pro- tect the world’s most precious natural re- source: fresh water. Exploring the concept of ‘artful rain-


paradise garden at Chelsea Flower Show The planting draws on Nigel Dunnett’s experience as lead horticultural and plant- ing design consultant for the London 2012 Olympic Park. Dramatic, colourful and naturalistic in Nigel Dunnett’s typical style, it is loosely modeled on beautiful ex- amples of dry meadows from around the world. The design includes four different naturalistic mixes, including a dramatic Turks Cap lily meadow display. Meanwhile, the garden’s overall colour scheme and pavilion are inspired by the landscape and architecture of Italy’s Puglia region, with its distinctive ‘Trulli’ buildings with their conical ‘dry stone’ roofs. Nigel Dunnett, designer of the gar-


he Royal Bank of Canada an- nounced a partnership with Nigel Dunnett and the Landscape Agen-


water management’, the RBC Blue Wa- ter Garden brings the water cycle to life by incorporating “bioswales” as a central feature. Instead of excess rainwater being sent straight to the drains, these linear structures channel the runoff through in- visible buried pipes allowing water to cir- culate through the garden visibly. This will be a modern and sustainable interpreta- tion of the formal ‘paradise garden’ at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. Here linear rills and canals form the centre-piece of the palace gardens. Importantly, the gar- den shows how sustainable concepts can form the basis for the design of even the most formal gardens.


6 • Foodie 2012


den, said: “The RBC Blue Water Garden explores how gardens and the landscape can form a central role in sustainable ur- ban water management. I have been in- spired by forward-looking urban planners in North America and Australia who use artful rainwater management principles creatively, using bioswales in streets and car parks to introduce dramatic planting into areas that would never otherwise be planted. By drawing both on these tech- niques and those used in traditional para- dise gardens, I hope to show that rainwa- ter management can be celebrated within a beautiful, formal context.” RBC is one of North America’s leading diversified financial services companies. `


Clement Kent as MC at Dufferin Grove Pollinator Party.


to Make a Pollinator’s Garden” has been of- fered as a topic at many other events and venues throughout the year and is on the agenda of several garden groups throughout Ontario this coming season. Clement Kent will take you step by step


through designing and planting a Pollina- tor’s Garden, a place that’s lovely for people and welcoming for butterflies, birds and bees. Canada’s pollinators have been declin- ing, but you can actually make a big differ- ence by gardening with their needs in mind. Because they are buzzing with bees, brilliant with butterflies, and humming with birds, these gardens are great places to be in and enjoy nature on the wing. Kent’s guide, How to Plant a Pollinator


Garden, has also been taken to schools where pollinator gardens have actually been plant- ed at four Toronto elementary schools. A gardener for many years, Kent left a successful career in the software industry to earn a PhD in biology. He now uses his background in math to do genetics and ge- nomics research in Professor Amro Zayed’s bee laboratory at York. “I found myself working in a lab at York


where Professor Bridget Stutchbury, who wrote Silence of the Songbirds, is down the hall. In the other direction is Professor Lau- rence Packer, who wrote Keeping the Bees. A lot of what they are talking about is habi- tat,” says Kent. “I recognized that gardens can be very good habitat if they are managed properly, so I decided to spread the word.” The NAPPC presented Kent’s award last October at an international conference at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. For information about the Pollinator


Garden project, see www.pollinatorgardens. net/ or for a VIDEO of Clement Kent go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMYt25- RTLQ `


www.localgardener.net


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