The Sunshine Coast Botanical Garden Society hopes to preserve biodiversity by creating a 1.6-hectare native plant garden at their site on Mason Road in West Sechelt.
Members say the garden, which would include plants from the Coast's four main biodiversity zones, would provide hands-on learning for Coasters and give insight into how our local ecosystem works.
"The better we understand what the plants need, for instance, the better we'll be able to support those plants and all the animals that go with them," said society president Paddy Wales. "It's a package. That's the biodiversity piece. The plants and animals from the microbes up to the towering trees all have to live together. They all fit together like a puzzle. We want the plants and animals all to survive like us, so we need to understand the way the plants that have always lived on the Sunshine Coast work with the animals and the climate."
The group has been making the rounds at local government tables to get letters of support for future grant applications to foot the estimated $100,000 cost of phase one.
Phase one includes clearing and prepping the garden grounds, building trails and planting Coastal rainforest species like cedars, flowering currants and trilliums.
"We're looking for that [$100,000] from a number of different sources," Wales added. "Government grants would be a very tiny portion and we're looking for foundation and corporate grants and private donors."
But even without any money for the project secured yet, work to clear the first portion of the site is already underway.
Wales said the Ruby Lake Lagoon Society has been instrumental in getting that first clearing done, with society staff members hosting "biodiversity work parties" since before Christmas.
"They have brought families, adults and lots of school groups to the garden to learn what biodiversity means, and then they do some land prep in our native plant garden, largely removing blackberries, learning how to compost them, building composts for the debris, and they've built bird houses too. It's a beautiful alignment of the two different societies, so we're very delighted," she said.
Lagoon Society member Lee-Ann Ennis said helping at the botanical garden is part of the society's goal to create biodiversity parks throughout the Sunshine Coast.
"We identified two locations that we wanted to work on, one on the Tyner property at Lily Lake and the second place was partnering with the botanical society to help them along with developing their gardens with focus on biodiversity," Ennis said.
The Lagoon Society is paying for Ennis' time with the project and for materials needed for things like birdhouse building.
"The botanical society just needed a little help," Ennis said.
The botanical garden society will be applying for grants to get the rest of their project underway soon, hopefully finishing one phase each year.
Currently members are growing seeds collected from wild native plants like the rhododendron that was found on Mount Elphinstone, so that they are ready to plant when the time comes.
Phase two of their project will focus on subalpine species, while phase three is made up of rain-shadow plant species. The final phase will showcase wetland plants.
For more information about the botanical garden and their native plant garden project, go to www.coastbotanicalgarden.org.
