Seed Festival
Fall 2022 - Inaugural Fall Seed Festival
We're looking for several volunteers to assist in planning our inaugural fall seed festival, which will take place during the first week of October (Monday, October 3rd - Sunday, October 9th). The seed festival will consist of a mix of hybrid events, and one of the cornerstone events of the festival will be the seed-saving training blitz for Guelph Campus Conservation Blitz.
To become a seed festival coordinator, please email Samantha at sustainability@uoguelph.ca to be added to the seed festival listserv. NOTE: The organization of the seed festival will start in early August.
March 2022 - Inaugural Spring Seed Festival
In March 2022, we hosted our inaugural virtual seed festival, a student-led initiative celebrating native plants and pollinators and the creation of our native plant seed orchard.
The seed festival consisted of three virtual events, which included:
Understanding Awaadiziwin (knowledge/culture) and its role in achieving Bimaadiziwin (life) featuring Joseph Pitawanakwat, Founder & Director of Creators Garden.
Description:
This webinar is led by Joseph Pitawanakwat, Founder & Director of Creators Garden, a 365 days-a-year, Indigenous outdoor-education-based business that will focus on understanding plant medicine and the mechanisms of how it works.
About the Speaker:
Joseph Pitawanakwat is an Anishnaabe educator from Wiikwemkoong First Nation on Manitoulin Island. Joe teaches plant medicine and works on reclaiming Anishinaabe names for species.
Webinar Description:
Story-telling plant medicine knowledge and its role in managing the Chronic Disease Epidemic and associated morbidities. We discuss disease pathology and why culture is the only appropriate intervention. We will acknowledge various cultural components as powerful therapies. We will focus, of course, on the plant medicines and understanding their mechanism. With us all at a solid understanding of this knowledge (awaadiziwin) and how it is required to achieve life itself (bimaadiziwin), the conversation then necessarily focuses on the uniquely human ability to engage in reciprocal relationships with medicines themselves and our roles and responsibilities to Aki, the land.
Creating Nature in the City with Native Plant Gardens: A Container Gardening Workshop featuring Jeff Thompson from Native Plant Source.
Date: Wednesday, March 23rd at 4 pm EST
Update: This event has been postponed until July.
Description:
Attend this virtual webinar to learn which native plants are the best choice to plant successfully in containers.
Container gardening is an opportunity to attract butterflies, bees and other beneficial insects onto your patio, deck, or balcony. It can be a great alternative to planting in the ground, especially for those renting or living in housing without direct access to greenspace.
This webinar led by Jeff Thompson from Native Plant Source will teach you about the many benefits of container gardens and provide an overview of what combination of native plants create dynamic focal points and support pollinators.
This webinar will discuss how we can create opportunities for nature to thrive in cities through solutions such as native plant container gardens.
About the Workshop Facilitator:
Jeff Thompson has been providing environmental and landscaping services to his public and private sector clients for over 30 years. Jeff has received landscape design awards and environmental recognition for the numerous designs and construction projects, including golf courses, municipal parks and corporate landscapes. His clients call on him for his expertise in creating sustainable landscapes, natural treatment systems and dealing with water issues.
He occasionally teaches at the University of Waterloo in the Environment and Resource Studies department and regularly runs workshops for Landscape Designers and Landscape Professionals at Landscape Ontario.
Native Plant & Pollinator Trivia
Description:
Test your knowledge on native plants & pollinators at our trivia night on Thursday, March 24th at 6 pm EST.
This trivia night will consist of one round of 30 questions, and there will be three winners (1st, 2nd, and 3rd).
Prizes include a $100 gift card to Patagonia for the 1st place winner, a $25 gift card to a local plant nursery for the 2nd place winner, and a copy of a Garden for the Rusty-Patched Bumblebee: Creating Habitat for Native Pollinators: Ontario and Great Lakes Edition for the 3rd place winner.
To kick-off this event, the Guelph Campus Conservation Team will give a short presentation about the on-campus seed orchard and how you can get involved with one of the several conservation-focused projects running this summer.