The Midtown Ravines Group is pleased to announce that the City has given us permission to begin volunteer stewardship activities in the Vale of Avoca. City permission is needed because park and ravine by-laws generally prohibit the unauthorized removal of plants from these areas, even troublesome invasives.
The Avoca stewardship project will be organized through Toronto Nature Stewards (TNS), which runs volunteer stewardship programs at over 50 sites across the City under an agreement with the Urban Forestry section of the Environment, Climate and Forestry Division. TNS is now in its sixth year of supporting volunteer work on the ecological restoration of the sites entrusted to their care. This link will connect you to the Toronto Nature Stewards website.
One of TNS’s first stewardship sites – Roxborough Parkette – sits just across Mount Pleasant from David Balfour Park. There, scores of volunteers have been working since 2021, methodically reducing the spread of invasives like common buckthorn, garlic mustard, and dog-strangling vine, and have re-introduced a variety of native plants that will support the area’s biodiversity and enrich the food supply for pollinator and bird populations. To learn more about the impact of volunteer efforts, have a look at the Roxborough Stewardship Story Map.
The newly authorized stewardship site at Avoca will be the south end of David Balfour Park, an area of about 1.8 hectares. (The Vale of Avoca ravine is situated within David Balfour Park.) The sections of the park to the north are classified as an Environmentally Significant Area (ESA) and are not eligible for community-led stewardship programs per City guidelines.
Although the stewardship area is only about 10 percent of the total Avoca ravine area, it has enough invasive plants to occupy a cohort of volunteers for some time. Invasives present in south Avoca (as well as other sections of the ravine) include garlic mustard, knotweed, burdock, buckthorn, dog-strangling vine, creeping bellflower, English ivy, and many others. Depending on volunteer interest, we will organize stewardship sessions at times to accommodate different schedules. Stewardship sessions typically run for around two hours, and volunteers are welcome to join sessions when it suits them.
The Avoca volunteer restoration work will start with a walk to explore the area and highlight native and invasive populations to address in future site stewardship activities. If you are interested in participating in or learning about Avoca stewardship activities, join us for a site walk on Wednesday, May 27th from 6pm to 7pm. Please meet in lower David Balfour Park near the traffic light where Roxborough Drive meets Mount Pleasant Road. (It’s not a problem if you can’t join this site-walk — there will be other opportunities to get involved.)
If you are interested in participating in ongoing park stewardship, please complete this short Avoca Stewardship Schedule Survey.
Volunteer stewardship allows you to connect with nature and with others in the community, while making a big difference in the health of our ravine ecosystems. We hope to see you out there!