The (almost) Lost Garry Oak Woodlands

   

  https://goert.ca/index.php https://ibis.geog.ubc.ca/biodiversity/GarryOakEcosystems.html https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/environment/plants-animals-and-ecosystems/conservation-data-centre/publications/erickson_garry_oak.pdf  https://www.hakaimagazine.com/videos-visuals/coastal-oakscapes/ email: garryoakwoodlands@gmail.com

    MEADOW Trees 1 Garry Oak Quercas Garryana – Obviously important for a Garry Oak Ecosystem, 2 Pacific Crabapple Malus Fusca – To provide food for deer and birds, host for butterflies 3 Red Alder? Alnus Rubra – to fix nitrogen into the soil, provide some shade for shade plants 4 Mountain Ash? Sorbus Sitchensis – To provide food for birds, provide some shade for shade plants Flowers/shrubs 1 Camas Lily Camassia Leichtlinii – Classic Garry Oak Ecosystem flower, wetter soil in sun. 2 Nodding Onion Allium Cernuum – For pollinators, good native plant for GOE, drier soil in sun. 3 White Fawn Lily Erythronium Oregonum – For pollinators and deer, good under oaks, drier soil in sun. 4 Nootka Rose Rosa Nutkana – For bird habitat, (Yellow Chat) deer and pollinators. Any soil in sun or some shade. 5 Mock Orange Philadelphus Lewisii – Winter food for deer, summer food for pollina

 In Canada, Garry oak ecosystems exist only in British Columbia — almost exclusively within a narrow coastal strip of southeast Vancouver Island, in the nearby Gulf Islands, and in two areas of the Fraser River Valley.    They used to cover a much, much wider area but have been decimated to less than 5% of their original land. 95% of the Garry Oak Woodland is gone. This is due to two main reasons. The first is destruction for cities, suburbs and agriculture. The second is due to fire suppression. Occasional low-intensity wildfires (set by First Nations) would clear out the Douglas Fir and other conifers, but leave the mature Garry Oaks. Now there's just lots of conifers everywhere, and the Garry Oak Ecosystem is rare.

 Garry Oak Woodlands are an old ecosystem that existed before British Columbia was settled. It was made up of big Garry Oak trees, and meadows of wildflowers under them. It provided excellent habitat for hundreds of species of birds, mammals, pollinators, amphibians and people.   Imagine an open landscape, sunlight filtered through leaves of ancient trees to colourful wildflowers waving in a gentle breeze. That's what parts of the Fraser Valley used to be like.   The first premier of British Columbia, James Douglas, called Garry Oak Woodlands “a perfect ‘Eden’ in the midst of the dreary wilderness of the North”    Not only are Garry Oak Ecosystems a beautiful, calming, quiet place to relax (an increasingly rare but essential asset) they are also home to crucial species, some endangered.   Garry oak and associated ecosystems combined are home to more plant species than any other terrestrial ecosystem in coastal British Columbia. Many of these species occur nowhere else in Cana