Upcoming meetings

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• March Meeting - Jane Hayes - How to impact “Earth Care'' in the City

  • When
    2023-03-27
  •  
    19:00 - 21:00
  • Location
    Bonar Parkdale Presbyterian Church, 250 Dunn Ave, Toronto, ON M6K 2R9

  MEETING TIME & LOCATION:

  • The meeting will start at 7:30PM in person and online.
  • IN PERSON... We will meet at Bonar Parkdale Presbyterian Church, 250 Dunn Ave, just South of Queen Street West. Arrive after 6:30 PM for refreshments and socializing! 

  • ONLINE... We will also be holding the meeting via Zoom. Current Hort members will be sent the Zoom link in the newsletter in the week leading up to the meeting.
  • Non-Hort Members are welcome to attend in-person for a suggested donation of $5 or Pay-What-You-Can. If you want to join the meeting online, please contact info@parkdaletorontohort.com.

  SPEAKER & TALK:

  Jane Hayes is a Toronto-based community developer, designer, and a founder of Garden Jane and Hoffmann Hayes. Jane is passionate about helping people grow healthy food and a healthy food system. She’s helped bring to life lots of smaller projects, as well as an Urban Agriculture Strategy (Mississauga), ~30 residential building gardens in master planned neighbourhoods; a Permaculture in Ontario map, farmer's markets, commercial foodscapes, and a national school garden program. Helping people grow regenerative livelihoods, businesses and organizations is another passion of Jane's. She holds a MES from York U. She’s on Permaculture Institute of North America’s board of directors and mentors for the Permaculture Women’s Guild PDC.

  

  A drive to earth care is often what calls people to permaculture, yet in Canada about 82% of us are in cities and almost 50% of us are in cities with populations over 100,000. With one third of Canadians (nearly 13 million) renting and almost no one in cities earning their living through agriculture, very few will have a chance to practice permanent agriculture for long. Given the pressures on time and resources for urban dwellers, interested people are challenged in figuring out how, where and with kind of impact they can practice permaculture.

  Join us for a presentation on urban permaculture and its impacts in the Greater Toronto Area, followed by a practical conversation on working with where you are at, and growing urban permaculture projects that honour people, the land and have impact. Jane will end her talk with a demonstration on seed balls.

  
  

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• April Meeting - Melanie Sifton - Restoring Urban Soils, Parks, and Green Roofs

  • When
    2023-04-24
  •  
    19:00 - 21:00
  • Location
    Bonar Parkdale Presbyterian Church, 250 Dunn Ave, Toronto, ON M6K 2R9

  MEETING LOCATION:

  • We will be meeting in person at Bonar Parkdale Presbyterian Church, 250 Dunn Ave, just South of Queen Street West. Arrive after 6:30 PM for refreshments and socializing, the meeting starts at 7:30PM. 
  • We will also be holding the meeting online through Zoom. Members will be sent the link in the newsletter in the week leading up to the meeting.

  SPEAKER & TALK:

  Melanie Sifton is a horticulturist with a background in public gardens and landscape management, and a PhD candidate at University of Toronto’s Institute of Forestry & Conservation. For her doctoral research, she has spent the last few years investigating new soil amendment strategies for the urban forest, including trials in Toronto parklands and on green roofs. As the former director of Humber Arboretum and Centre for Urban Ecology in Toronto, and the former Vice President of Horticulture & Facilities for Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York City, Melanie is passionate about urban environmental health, ecological landscape design, and land-based education. Warning: if there is an open space -even a small, dark, neglected, and seemingly inhospitable place - she is compelled to try to grow plants in it!

  

  As our cities and developed areas continue to grow up and outward, urban forests and urban vegetation of all types have become complex resources that are more challenging than ever to nurture. While there are numerous stresses affecting urban plants, limitations like drought, compaction, nutrient imbalances, and contaminants often lead back to soil issues. What can be done to promote healthy plants in difficult and degraded urban soils? This presentation will explain new research and some promising results from soil amendments like biochar, nitrogen-fixing companion plants, and biofertilizers, and provide some practical options for restoring and assisting our precious urban forest soils and plants.

  

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• Merry May Meeting - Highlighting Hort Members' Favourite Plants & Garden Designs

  • When
    2023-05-29
  •  
    19:00 - 21:00
  • Location
    Bonar Parkdale Presbyterian Church, 250 Dunn Ave, Toronto, ON M6K 2R9

  MEETING LOCATION:

  • We will be meeting in person at Bonar Parkdale Presbyterian Church, 250 Dunn Ave, just South of Queen Street West. Arrive after 6:30 PM for refreshments and socializing, the meeting starts at 7:30PM. 
  • We will also be holding the meeting online through Zoom. Members will be sent the link in the newsletter in the week leading up to the meeting.

  MERRY MAY MEETING:

  This is the time to shine for the Hort's members! Hort members showcase their favourite plants and gardens.  

  Interested in showcasing your favourite plant or garden design?

  • Send us your photos/videos with a short description of what makes this plant, garden, or garden design stand out to be your favourite. Please submit your content by Monday, May 22nd at newsletter@parkdaletorontohort.com. Only submissions by active Hort Members will be accepted. 
  • • Do you want to become a member of the Hort? Would you like to renew your membership? Click here!
  • It doesn't have to be from your garden or balcony, it could be any plants that you've encountered, gardens you have visited recently, or a garden design plan that inspired you! 
  • Video Tips:
  • 1. Video length must be no longer than 5 minutes so we can accommodate everyone. 
    2. If your video file is too big to send by email, please upload it to a video sharing site (ex. YouTube, Vimeo) or a cloud storage site (ex. Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, iCloud), and send us a link to your video. Make sure to give public permission to see your video or we can't show it. 
  • For example: The photos below were taken by Sarah Rafols (Hort Newsletter Editor & Member) from last year's growing season. She loved the bright, sunny, and hopeful colours of tulips planted at Landscape Ontario's Head Office in Milton, ON; the contrast of container petunias that stand out a formal front garden in the Wychwood neighbourhood; and the playful, vibrant swaths of native Echinacea and Rudbeckia at the Toronto Music Garden.

  

  

  
  

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• September Meeting - Dr. Elizabeth Van Volkenburgh - Do Plants Think?

  • When
    2023-09-25
  •  
    19:00 - 21:00
  • Location
    Bonar Parkdale Presbyterian Church, 250 Dunn Ave, Toronto, ON M6K 2R9

  MEETING LOCATION:

  • We will be meeting in person at Bonar Parkdale Presbyterian Church, 250 Dunn Ave, just South of Queen Street West. Arrive after 6:30 PM for refreshments and socializing, the meeting starts at 7:30PM. 
  • We will also be holding the meeting online through Zoom. Members will be sent the link in the newsletter in the week leading up to the meeting.

  SPEAKER & TALK DESCRIPTION COMING SOON

  
  

  
  

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• October Meeting - Paul Gellatly

  • When
    2023-09-25
  •  
    19:00 - 21:00
  • Location
    Bonar Parkdale Presbyterian Church, 250 Dunn Ave, Toronto, ON M6K 2R9

  MEETING LOCATION:

  • We will be meeting in person at Bonar Parkdale Presbyterian Church, 250 Dunn Ave, just South of Queen Street West. Arrive after 6:30 PM for refreshments and socializing, the meeting starts at 7:30PM. 
  • We will also be holding the meeting online through Zoom. Members will be sent the link in the newsletter in the week leading up to the meeting.

  SPEAKER & TALK DESCRIPTION COMING SOON

  
  

  
  

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• November Meeting & Annual General Meeting (AGM) - Speaker TBD

  • When
    2023-11-27
  •  
    16:30 - 21:00
  • Location
    Bonar Parkdale Presbyterian Church, 250 Dunn Ave, Toronto, ON M6K 2R9

  MEETING LOCATION:

  • We will be meeting in person at Bonar Parkdale Presbyterian Church, 250 Dunn Ave, just South of Queen Street West. Arrive after 6:30 PM for refreshments and socializing, the meeting starts at 7:00PM. 
  • We will also be holding the meeting online through Zoom. Members will be sent the link in the newsletter in the week leading up to the meeting.

  AGM AGENDA, SPEAKER & TALK DESCRIPTION COMING SOON

  
  

  
  

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