Guild Park’s Native Pollinator Garden is receiving an award from the City of Toronto and Guild Park supporters are invited to help celebrate at the local ceremony.
From all the gardens nominated across Toronto this year, City officials selected Guild Park’s two-year-old garden as the top community garden in 2024.
This is a remarkable achievement by local park volunteers and gardeners. To celebrate, the City of Toronto is hosting a free reception at Guild Park’s Clark Centre to congratulate all the winners.
Guild Park volunteer gardeners, park supporters and local residents are invited to attend. Free advance registration for this event is required and is now available at https://www.friendsofguildpark.com/event-details/city-of-toronto-2024-garden-awards-ceremony
Details:
Event: City of Toronto Garden Contest Award Ceremony
Date: Wed. Oct. 30, 2024
Time: 2:00 to 4:00 pm
Location: Clark Centre for the Arts, 191 Guildwood Pkwy. (on the grounds of Guild Park). Plenty of free parking on-site
Registrations are limited and must be received by noon, Thursday October 24. Please RSVP early to avoid disappointment.
Guild Park’s award-winning Native Pollinator Garden was created by the collaboration of Friends of Guild Park and the Guildwood Butterflyway Project.
The two volunteer groups successfully applied for a City of Toronto PollinateTO Program back in 2020.
After delays due to Covid, in spring 2022 volunteers began transforming an overlooked and underused strip of land adjacent to Guild Park’s Sculptor’s Cabin. The photo, left, shows the desolate area destined for the City-sponsored Pollinator Garden.
Digging, mulching, solarization and planting took place over five months. All the active work on this new garden is
done by volunteers, as seen in this 2022 photo of the volunteer mulching crew.
This approach allows the City’s Horticulture Team to concentrate on Guild Park’s formal garden beds located elsewhere throughout the park’s 88 acres.
By October 2022, dozens of different native pollinator plants – from Blue-stemmed Goldenrod to Swamp Milkweed to Black-eye Susans – were planted and left to overwinter.
Next spring, the new garden was officially launched with the first small plants emerging and a new, custom-designed sign in place (see image).
By 2024, the plants are well established and continue to flourish.
Earlier this year, Guild Park’s Native Pollinator Garden was featured as part of the National Trust for Canada’s Historic Places Day. The garden showed how nature is an important part of the site’s legacy as the Guild of All Arts artists’ community.
Allison Murray, who heads the Guildwood Butterflyway Project, likes to describe this plot of pollinator plants as “a butterfly factory.” She notes how the garden creates a compact and complete life-cycle habitat. It’s a spot where a variety of butterflies can lay their eggs, then have the next generation of newly-hatched caterpillars feed on the sustaining vegetation. This cycle of breeding and feeding continues all growing season.
Other wildlife, such as birds and bees, rabbits and deer, are also attracted to the plants. Some small insects even spend the winter protected by the stems and foliage left standing in the garden.
Volunteers continue to provide Mother Nature with their helping hands. Every Friday morning May through October, an active group of people are at the Sculptor's Cabin to weed, water and look after the garden.
This year’s City of Toronto Award is a testament to the years of effort by the community residents who started and are
stewards of this small and highly-visible landmark of Guild Park & Gardens, where art meets nature.
The Guild Park Native Pollinator Garden is supported by the City of Toronto through Live Green Toronto and the PollinateTO Community Grants Program.
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