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Stewardship: Caring for the world around us.

We are involved in the creation and care of gardens, parks and green spaces every day.  We are on the front lines of conservation in our city. The care of our environment is something that starts an a personal level and has the potential to reverse some of the damage we have already done, if each one of us does a small part. Preserving plants that are already growing at a new building site is one such way.  We owe much of our awareness to the importance of this to Ron Williams ( Montreal Landscape Architect) Strathmore did many projects with Ron and his office (Williams Asselin Ackaoui) in the 80's and 90's. On many occasions Ron would go to great pains to preserve any trees that were on the site, and would incorporate that material into his garden design. In the course of doing this we all realized the importance of respecting the site and the plants we found there.

Place Felix Martin

   Here is an example. This is a Catalpa tree that was growing on the site of what is now Place Felix Martin on René Levesque St. On the left is a photo of yours truly and my son Gordon, as we were carefully digging out the this tree. The tree was put into temporary storage, in a corner of what was then to become a construction site while the building was built. After the building was completed the tree was re-located as a feature element of the garden. The photo on the right shows the same tree 15 years later and doing fine. There were several other sumacs that were also saved and placed into the new garden.

McGill University, Molson Stadium

 Another example was the construction of a new sports facility at McGill University. In order to construct the building there were about 100 trees on a steeply sloped piece of land. The trees were for the most part wild Manitoba Maples and Ash that had sprung up on their own over the years. There was a few Black Walnuts and the average size was about 12-18 inch caliper trunk. Nature had created a lovely green space with what many would consider "weed" trees. Ron Williams and McGill decided to try and save them.

Strathmore got involved because of our past experience with this type of work, along with a good friend and associate Rudy Ruben, a horticulturalist and himself a landscaper. The situation was very difficult. The trees were growing on a 45% slope and the soil was comprised of 75% rocks and pieces of old concrete that were dumped there years ago. These sit conditions made it impossible to use conventional digging systems or tree spade equipment.

We decided to use a large Caterpillar shovel and an equally large pay loader. The trees were trimmed of about 1/3 of their branches, or more, as soon as they were dug out. Rudy devised a system of canvass straps to secure the trees to the arm of the shovel. We then carried the trees one by one to an area that we had already prepared. We created the receiving area at the east end of Molson Stadium, by cultivating the soil and trucking in some good earth. In all we moved about 90 big trees including some of almost  2 ft. caliper and 45 ft tall. Every tree survived and they are now forming a nice little forest overlooking the stadium. We installed an irrigation system with a timer to provide frequent watering at regular intervals. This was absolutely necessary to ensure the trees would live. By working on these type of project Strathmore has learned to respect the site and especially the existing plant material. Often it is makes good economic sense to save what is there rather than buying a lot of new plants.

Tom Shivley

I  had another teacher in this area in my friend Tom Shivley. Tom passed away a few years ago and will be missed by all that knew him. He was a talented Landscape Architect and unconventional in his approach to landscaping and the environment. Tom liked to use native plants at a time when few others had even considered it. There were no places to buy the plants he wanted and Tom would contact me each spring to arrange to collect some. I would supply Tom with 3 or 4 men and a truck and off they would go. Tom always had places to find what he wanted, usually fields and woods that were slated for destruction by developers. We would rescue all sorts of plants: Trillium, Bloodroot, Ferns, Pagoda Dogwood, Stripped Maple and his cherished Amelancher. The plants would be brought back to our yard and put into pots and placed in a mini nursery for use in Toms garden designs.