Assiniboine Park short-listed by Communities in Bloom for national award

The verdant gardens and fragrant floral displays at Assiniboine Park are putting their best carefully pruned rose bushes forward as they're judged for a national competition.

Communities in Bloom sends a team of green thumbs out every year to judge well-known living history museums, parks and green spaces across Canada. The organization is a charity committed to raising awareness about the environment and how parks and the outdoors enrich daily life.

A judge with the charity, Berta Briggs, said compared to some parks she's judged over the years, she is impressed with an apparent "rebirth" that has occurred in Assiniboine Park in the past six or seven years.

Assiniboine Park short-listed by Communities in Bloom for national award

8 years ago

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The verdant gardens and fragrant floral displays at Assiniboine Park are putting their best carefully pruned rose bushes forward as they're judged for a national competition.

"[Upgrades have] taken it from a people-take-it-for-granted type park to one of huge vitality," she said. "Just look around and see how people are becoming engaged and this is part of their community."

Assiniboine Park was invited to participate this year based on its reputation and achievements in the horticultural world, Communities in Bloom program co-ordinator Sonia Parrino said.

"It has to do with building a community around your green spaces and celebrating that community aspect," Pearce said.

Judges visited the park Monday to evaluate its green spaces for the Special Attractions category, which is based on planning, maintenance, innovation and management efforts.

"We've just gotten started but we're very impressed," Briggs said over the gurgle of a fountain in the English Gardens. "The very fact they're competing means they're really in the game."

Each park or community is specifically graded on six criteria, including tidiness, environmental action, natural and cultural heritage conservation, urban forestry, landscape and floral displays.

In terms of tidiness, everything from weed control and litter on sidewalks to roadway and sign quality is inspected.

In the environmental action column, Assiniboine Park's water and energy conservation, waste disposal and other stewardship efforts will be put to test.

Cultural heritage represents one of the more broadly defined portions of the evaluation. The Pavilion Gallery Museum, and the many statues and pieces of art found throughout the park are just part of the equation. The cultural connections the park provides to members of the public — including hosting festivals such as the Teddy Bears' Picnic — are also scored, Pearce said.

The health and diversity of trees, including how many species are "pollinator-friendly," that make up the Assiniboine Park forest are judged, as are the park's pest management strategies.

The creative use and maintenance of outdoor spaces are important markers of green-minded design in the landscape section, Pearce said, adding the conversion or naturalization of a section of the park to all native plants might earn a park a gold star.

The English Garden and the Formal Garden are considered the jewels of the park to many flower lovers in the city and will be scored on their floral displays.

Green space, 'special place'

But the stewardship of a green space is reliant on more than just hardy flowers and trees and the birds and bees that pollinate them.

"It's a very special place for a lot of people, so how do we steward it and make sure that it's going to be here for generations to come?" Pearce asked. "Communities in Bloom asking us to participate shows that we're working in the right direction. We'd like to be the leaders in green, sustainable management for parks."

Battlefields Park and Reford Gardens in Quebec, the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village in Alberta and the International Peace Gardens along the Canada-U.S. border in southwestern Manitoba are being judged in the same category as Assiniboine Park.

Pearce relayed a story that she said illustrates how important a space like Assiniboine Park is to community health.

"There's a woman who is rehabilitating from cancer and she walks here everyday. She called in the other day and said to one of the people who work here that this park is really what's helped to get her healthy," Pearce said. "There's tons of studies that show people learn better and people are calmer [with green spaces]."

Results of the competition will be unveiled Oct. 27-29 in Regina.