Yellowjackets and wasps here until the first frost
While the hot, dry summer meant fewer pests like mosquitoes in Edmonton, it has created ideal conditions for the worst year for wasps and yellowjackets the city has ever seen. The city does not have exact data on how many of the pests the region sees each year, but pest management coordinator Mike Jenkins says no one can remember a season with more calls to deal with nests on city property.
Most wasp species in the Edmonton area do not construct paper nests and generally do not or cannot sting. Yellowjackets can sting multiple times and are attracted to meats and sweet beverages. They may be inside empty pop cans, poking around in poorly tied garbage bags or in the immediate proximity of fruit trees, especially in the fall.
The peak for these pests is usually mid to late August but expect the populations to continue to grow until at least the first frost. Read more at https://www.edmonton.ca/programs_services/pests/yellowjacket-wasps
Edmonton has one of the world’s last stands of healthy elms
Rows of stately elm trees once proudly lined boulevards across North America. Then, in 1930, a furniture company in Cleveland imported elm logs from England infected with a pathogen known as Dutch elm disease. Millions of elm trees have fallen to the disease, stripping cities of their presence across the continent.
Alberta has almost completely succeeded in keeping out the disease. Efforts led by the Society to Prevent Dutch Elm Disease (STOPDED) mean that the province today counts about 600,000 healthy American elms. Edmonton alone boasts about 80,000 elm trees.
But elm bark beetles, which carry the disease, have been found in our province since 1994. In other areas, disease arrived 3 to 7 years later, which is why the City of Edmonton has invested in a preventative strategy to protect one of the world's last stands of healthy elms.
Be on the lookout for these symptoms of Dutch elm disease: drooping and yellowing leaves in summer, branches with smaller leaves than rest of the tree, branches with no leaves, and brown wilted leaves that remain on the tree. If you suspect disease on any public or private elm tree, please call 311 or email treebugs@edmonton.ca Learn more at https://www.edmonton.ca/programs_services/pests/dutch-elm-disease
Chinese market gardens part of river valley history
In an early map of Fort Edmonton, twice the land is given to cultivation as to all the first four buildings combined. An 1872 traveller remarked that “the same land has been used for the farm for thirty years, without any manure worth speaking of being put on,” which suggests the fertility of the loamy soil.
A series of Chinese gardeners leased land from the J.B. Little Brickworks, north of Riverdale School between 88 and 92 Streets at 101 Avenue. Yet You is remembered for adding gates to the fences for children to walk past “row upon row of lovely cabbages, radishes, lettuce, corn and carrots” as a shortcut to the school.
By 1935, there were fifteen Chinese gardens “strung out along the North Saskatchewan River valley from Beverly in the east to Government House in the west.” An Edmonton Journal commentator enthused about “a veritable Chinese tapestry worked out in rectangles of harmonious greens, sea green, sage green, olive green, and the delicate apple green of lettuce beds.”
Chin Lock’s gardens were on the former site of John Walter’s lumber business. Jung Suey and Gee Gut cultivated the riverfront now occupied by Kinsmen Park. Hong Lee developed Groat Flats until the expansion of Victoria Golf Course and the Groat Bridge.
Hop Sing and another man, remembered as extremely hard workers, operated a huge market garden before and during the war that spanned over six city blocks in Belgravia. Previously, these fields may have served as a Depression relief garden, because the Edmonton Journal reports 35 acres in five communities, 15 acres in Belgravia, cultivated by “work parties of men on relief” in 1933. Read more at https://citymuseumedmonton.ca/2021/07/13/early-market-gardens-in-edmonton/
Thanks for the newsletter
Andrew writes “As always, I'm enjoying the newsletter this morning very much. Thank you for these well written and fascinating treasures.”
Comment on photo
Burns says “I read each of your emails every time you send one. Thank you for that. I thought the picture in your last one was of four Yellow Jackets gathered together. I know there are many wild bees, but I’m not sure about the insects in the picture.”
Editor - Yes those were Yellowjackets. Photo was confusing as it followed a story on bees collecting pollen from Manitoba Maples.
Comment or contribution
If you have a comment, concern, or question, contact us at nsrivervalley@gmail.com Please also email us river valley photos or event information. Your friends, neighbours and colleagues can sign up for this newsletter on our web site.
Sincerely yours,
Harvey Voogd
North Saskatchewan River Valley Conservation Society
780.691.1712