We continue our blog post series featuring Monarch Awards' and Caterpillar Awards' winners 2019 in the hope that you too will be inspired to apply this year. In this post, we hear from Lucy Dubeckyj, Caterpillar Award recipient (of the Hamilton Monarch Awards).
Lucy owns a small greenhouse manufacturing business in Dundas. She has always appreciated pollinators. When Lucy heard about the Hamilton Monarch Awards, she applied immediately: “I have never been interested in a Trillium Award, but this one, I could get behind.”

​Lucy has been a gardener for a while. When she faced a transitional point in her life, gardening was her therapy and she started digging and planting; "you have total control over your plants, where and how they go, they don’t talk back.” 
In choosing her plants, Lucy goes by intuition: “I go with how I feel, I don’t know the names of everything I plant--so this plant is from my sister Stella, that one from my neighbour, Barb.”
Although Lucy appreciates order to a garden, “there is a little bit of room for chaos. I like to surprise visitors when they visit my gardens.” 

Tina Cooper, Caterpillar Award 2019 recipient (of the Hamilton Monarch Awards).
Tina has been gardening for twenty-five years. Previously, she lived in the country on an acre of land, converting grass to flower beds. She moved ten years ago to Ancaster. Her current property backs onto a ravine where she enjoys watching the wildlife this setting attracts.
“It’s an oasis,” Tina describes her garden. “It gives us so much pleasure to sit there; at any moment, you’re not sure what you’re going to see.”

Michael Albanese, Caterpillar Awards 2019, Recipient. The Caterpillar Awards of the Hamilton Monarch Awards  recognize the efforts of beginner gardeners, people making small gardens or “first try” gardens, regardless of the property size and
people with small “postage stamp” properties.

Michael Albanese’s garden is a rain garden, which is fitting since he is President of Avesi Stormwater and Landscape Solutions, where he helps people integrate rainwater into their landscapes.
By using his front yard to showcase a rain garden, Michael hopes to raise awareness around rainwater management and see more rain gardens in the community. His involvement with rain gardens dates back to 2008 during his undergraduate education in Earth Systems Science at the University of Waterloo: “That is where I was introduced to the concept of stormwater management and how it impacts our freshwater resources.” As Michael points out residential sites are critical to watershed health: “I saw a real opportunity to help people use their landscapes for good – being a steward for the environment starts at home, it doesn’t have to be the responsibility of cities.”

Great news for Hamilton residents!  The Hamilton Naturalists Club and Environment Hamilton, along with many other local conservation groups and city of Hamilton staff have been working throughout 2019 to begin the process for a made-in-Hamilton Biodiversity Action Plan. On February 19, a motion was passed at General Issues Committee to investigate the feasibility of developing such a plan. We are thrilled! 

Jen Baker (HNC Project Manager) delegated to the Committee on behalf of the team. Key highlighted messages in our presentation are the following:
Biological diversity is another name for nature. It is the diversity of all species--bacteria to birds, plants to people and their habitats.
Hamilton lies within a Canadian biodiversity hotspot and we should be proud of this. Our range of habitats, including the Niagara Escarpment, Lake Ontario, coastal wetlands like Cootes Paradise, mature forests, that  support many species and provide millions in ecosystem services each year. 
Nature has its own intrinsic value but humans also rely on biodiversity to survive. Nature provides many benefits to us such as managing flooding by storing water, significantly reducing air pollution by sequestering carbon, filtering out harmful air particulates, and cooling which reduces the harmful effects of heatwaves. It also provides beautiful green spaces that provide a refuge and that support the health and  well-being of the community.  
Basically, biodiversity is the foundation for life and the healthier our biodiversity is, the better our quality of life. Any impacts to nature reduce the ecosystem benefits to our community. 

​​In 2019, The Monarch Awards “for gardens that nature loves, by gardeners who love nature,” received 33 Monarch Award applications. Field judges named five gardeners as recipients of these awards, previously a competition, now a standard of excellence. As well, seven Caterpillar Awards were given out to beginner gardeners and small gardens. Over the next few months, we will be sharing stories from award winners of both categories. Here’s our first story.

“Every change has a catalyst, something happens to make you rethink your point of view,” says Waterdown resident, Ann Martin about the genesis of her nature-supporting garden. “The loss of our Maple tree in the 2013 ice storm was mine.”
Previously, Ann’s backyard was all shade but with the damaged tree downed, and the garden leveled to a clean slate, “suddenly, we had full sun.” With her husband, John, she decided that everything they would plant from then on had to feed somebody: “birds, bees, us.” 
Ann knew she wanted fruits; she put in peach, apples, asparagus, blueberries, raspberries, red and black currant bushes, with native species flower tucked in every inch of the space. She planted Echinacea and Joe-pye around the perimeter of the yard: “now we have gorgeous bees and butterflies, there’s so much life in my backyard.”
Ann also put in two rain gardens and ripped up the front yard in preparation for this year’s garden.

We asked Ann what has been the response from the neighbours thus far. “We have a lot of conversations, there’s been mostly positive feedback,” she responds, pointing out that people are looking for ways and things to do to help, because of climate change being front and centre. For Ann, knowing what and how to make change is part of a grassroots movement that covers anything from refilled jars to gardening for nature: “you can change where you are.”
Asked about specific challenges she faced in starting a nature-benefiting garden, Ann describes the actual sourcing of native plants as difficult. 
“I had to travel; lots of road trips, but lots of fun,” this energetic Personal Support Worker says. Ann hit every native plant sale, the first being the RBG sale; “I thought, okay, this I like.”
As to support and resources that helped her on the way, Ann refers to the halton environmental talks on watersheds and native plants as being very motivating. She was also able to access a grant from the Hamilton Halton Watershed Stewardship Program towards establishing rain gardens. Micheal Albanese, with Avesi Storm Water, came out to help with the planning for the two water gardens in the front. Ann learned about other native plant nurseries in the area after ttending the first native plant sale at RBG.
“Once you get your toe in the door, you find out more,” she says.
About the Monarch Awards themselves, “I think a huge part of this is that it’s going to be changing the Trillium Awards, which is already happening, like how they are now allowing clover on lawns, that’s really positive,” Ann concludes.

​The Pollinator Paradise Project, (an initiative of the Hamilton Naturalists' Club and Environment Hamilton) has been going for 5 years. Are you curious about what this looks like at the end of 2019? Well here's a list of what we've been up to all this time:

1. HNC created 33 sites
2. Focal Pollinator Paradise sites created in 6 wards. In 2020, our goal is to have a focal site in each of the 12 urban wards
3. 5,400 native plants (trees, shrubs and wildflowers) planted in public parks, schools, places of worship, private yards – over 30 species 
4. 13 kg of seed sown
5. 277 certified Pollinator Paradise sites on private lands. Our goal is 350 for 2020.
6. 310 habitats built along pollinator network, also enhancing biodiversity
7. Over $320,000 raised for plants and to support 1.5 FTE
8. Over 700 students engaged
9. 23 workshops with over 1,650 participants 
10. McMaster researcher, 2018 field work, found the top species at all sites were sweat bees and small carpenter bees
11. 1 giant mural painted by Hess Street School students (2018)
12. Detailed Toolkit with support from McMaster Masters students on how to create pollinator habitat, including plant lists (2019)
13. Mini Toolkit/flyer on how to create pollinator paradise (2019)
14. Story map that provides details of the planting sites
15. Monarch Awards - 156 entrants, 26 award recipients (2015-2018)
16. Created Instagram account (2015) and now have 1,120 followers. Please follow us on instagram.
17. Social media promotion going strong: In 2019 Bee of the Month, Pollinator Month, and promotional support from our friends at Donut Monster. Promoted hastags #hamontbiodiversity and #MyHamiltonIncludesnature
18. Biodiversity direction started in 2018 and in 2019, we formed a working group to prepare the way for a Biodiversity Action Plan for the City of Hamilton
19. Contributed a series of articles for the local paper,  thespec.com on biodiversity.
20. Planning our 2020 Campaign. GET ON THE MAP: Plant a pollinator garden and help support our local biodiversity.

​We look forward to creating more beautiful pollinator paradise sites with you, in 2020.