A surprise phone call from a land developer will allow some native grasses and plants to be saved from the bulldozer in Southern Alberta this weekend.
Blake McNeill of Alberta Native Plant Rescue, is organizing a group to collect a variety of native grasses and plants before the bulldozers scrape them away forever in south Cochrane, in the field behind Bow Valley High School.
McNeill said his group of native plant rescuers were overjoyed to be approached by Calbridge Developments with the invite. One of the native plant experts in his group described the site as “a gold mine” after he inspected the Summit Heights area last week.
The Native Plant Rescue is the same group that gathered thousands of rare plants from the site of the Highway 1A/22 interchange near Caochrane just before the dozers moved in a couple of years ago.
This time, the plant gatherers didn’t have to lobby anyone or pressure the province or the developers to allow them access to the land – the developers came to them first.
That’s why McNeill said Calbridge deserves special kudos for taking the initiative.
“They contacted us out of the blue. This is really progressive of them,” he said.
They don’t always get the opportunity to get organized in time to do native plant rescues with all developers.
“We didn’t get a shot with other developers. Calbridge gave us a shot, and that’s fantastic,” he said.
Native species are popular choices to plant in gardens and yards.
“This is a good time to plant too, the plants are starting to go dormant, so they have all their energy stored up for the winter – this is a great time to be moving those plants,” McNeill said.