Article by John Challis

Our lawns and gardens are filled with plants that don’t belong in Muskoka, imported here since the first European settlers arrived. Plants like periwinkle, yellow iris, purple loosestrife, Japanese knotweed – and yes, all that Kentucky bluegrass on the lawn – have compromised an ecological balance that evolved over thousands of years.

Restoring natural plant communities means knowing what was there before we groomed our lawns. And that knowledge relies heavily on the field work of community scientists paired with experts. In Muskoka, the data goes back years, and is ongoing. The science, meanwhile, is being applied in the field.

The Muskoka Conservancy is one of many agencies applying knowledge to encourage both seasonal and year-round residents to help restore some natural balance on their land. Their annual native plant sale owes its selection to community science, says sale co-ordinator Jan McDonnell.

“It’s loosely based on the funded science and a bit of (community) science in the Muskoka Heritage Areas Program,” McDonnell says.

In the early 1990s the ambitious program catalogued an inventory of all the biological and cultural features of Muskoka.

“The species list generated by MHAP guides the species chosen for sale and the knowledge base and ethic created by that program helped to support the development of the native plant sale back then,” McDonnell says.

Many organizations are engaged in encouraging private landowners to naturalize their landscapes. The Land Between offers a range of resources on native landscaping and planting. Shoreland design workshops are available for community groups. They can do site visits, create garden plans and even do the planting for individual property owners. Their website also offers up guides, videos and plant lists for property owners. Much of their emphasis is on shorelines.

“The shoreland (from the shallows up 30 metres onto land) is an incredibly productive area,” says Kate Dickson, The Land Between’s marketing and communications lead. “It’s estimated that 90 per cent of aquatic and 70 per cent of terrestrial species rely on the shoreland for habitat.”

Roughly 80 per cent of lakefront is privately owned in cottage country, so that land is just as important as land trust reserves or parks.

Naturalizing shorelands is a win for wildlife and property owners alike. Anyone with a waterfront lawn knows the battle involved in keeping Canada geese from leaving their deposits behind. Dickson says natural landscaping is a far better method of discouraging geese than plastic barriers and scare decals.

A naturalized shoreline helps restore the ecosystem between water and shore. Fish habitat can be improved, pollinator insects will return to the native garden and birds will follow the insects. Invisible to us, key relationships between plant communities are established, improving the overall health and resilience of the garden.

Ongoing community science can’t be forgotten in all this. The Muskoka Conservancy relies on volunteers who help compile research on its 35 nature reserves and 15 conservation easement properties. Amanda Porter, the conservation co-ordinator at Muskoka Conservancy, says teams of volunteers called land stewards survey each of their properties.

“When completing inventories we will target the plants, birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, insects, fungi, mosses, and lichen,” Porter shares.

In addition to the land stewards, expert ecologists and naturalists make up a technical advisory group that supplements the work of the community scientists. The knowledge base they’re building is a lasting template for preserving the natural values of the properties. Sometimes, it also helps them step in immediately to tackle an issue.

Five years ago, the inventory done at Bert and Millie’s Marsh east of Beatrice, a protected alder swamp, identified an unwanted visitor: phragmites. Phragmites is an invasive grass that grows as tall as 2.2 metres. It spreads by runners that are as tough as electrical cable and can take over an entire wetland.

The discovery, Porter says, “prompted us to begin a phragmites management project where we have been able to engage volunteers and get them involved firsthand in removing the persistent grass from the wetland.”

As always, the iNaturalist app allows anyone to become a community scientist. The District of Muskoka monitors the species identified in iNaturalist to shape its Integrated Watershed Management Plan strategies. Cottager groups on Clearwater Lake, in Muskoka’s south, and Brandy Lake in central Muskoka, have their own iNaturalist projects to keep tabs on what’s special about their little corner of the district.

The pandemic pushed many people to step outside and begin to appreciate the natural world around them. With more landscapes being naturalized, and more community scientists out there building knowledge, it may deepen our appreciation of the natural world.