AMID THE WEEDS,
Finding beauty in the plants that thrive in vacant lots and give sustenance to birds and insects
THERE’S BEAUTY AND BIODIVERSITY.
One of Roger Latour’s favourite places is a hidden oasis where birds nest in the branches of old trees and butterflies sip nectar from showy flowers. More than 250 species of plants, insects, birds and small mammals have found refuge here, among them a strange and unusual verbena flower rarely seen in Quebec and a wasp that gets “drunk” sipping nectar from an orchid.
Latour’s paradise isn’t a far-off tropical idyll, but a two-acre tract of abandoned industrial land in the heart of Mile End, wedged between graffiti-scrawled factories and justbuilt condo projects east of St. Laurent Blvd., near Maguire and Henri Julien Sts.
To most people, it will not seem like much. The grass is overgrown. Just up the street, trucks beep as they back up at the docks of a food distribution warehouse. The plants are mostly what other people would call weeds: dandelion, chickweed, ragweed and bindweed.
But to Latour, a writer and photographer and amateur botanist who lives in the neighbourhood, it is a marvel of biodiversity. He and a group of like-minded residents working to preserve this rare patch of green space in a dense urban setting have nicknamed it Le Champ des possibles, which translates loosely as Field of Dreams.
Mostly, vacant tracts like these are viewed as derelict places waiting for a buyer. They are unadorned and unheralded. But Latour says they are invaluable havens for plants and wildlife. In the Champ des possibles, for example, he has spotted and identified more than 15 species of butterflies, among them monarchs, attracted by the ample supply of milkweed, and red admirals, who come to lay their eggs on the fuzzy leaves of stinging nettles that grow profusely here.
“Stepping into one of these places is amazing. Nobody ever goes there, so there are dragonflies and damselflies and other insects by the ton. It’s so quiet, it’s like you are on another planet,” Latour says of another of his favourite vacant lots near Viau and Notre Dame St., in the east end. “There is far more biodiversity in these places than in any manicured city park.”
Latour says the field in Mile End is a perfect example of what Mother Nature is capable of when left to her own devices. The land was purchased several years ago by the City of Montreal, which had planned to use it as a public works yard until an outcry from residents put a halt to that idea. It was a Canadian Pacific Railway rail yard until the 1970s, when it was abandoned, “desolate and gravel-strewn, without a living thing in it,” Latour recalls. That the soil underneath was deemed contaminated meant that developers had little interest in the site.
Over 40 years or so, nothing much happened here, apart from teenagers throwing weekend drinking parties and neighbours walking their dogs or using it as a shortcut to nearby Rosemont métro station. But slowly and steadfastly, nature began introducing plants with the help of the wind, the birds and the insects. Canola and wheat seeds and other species of Prairie grains from Western Canada and the southern U.S. that had dropped from the trains took root in the dry, sunny environment adjacent to the tracks. Nuts from the black walnuts trees that grace the yard at the Carmelite Monastery across the street were brought over by squirrels. They, too, took root.
In some ways, Latour says, vacant urban fields offer a greater degree of botanical interest and biodiversity than a pristine Boreal forest in the Laurentians, where mostly indigenous species grow. In a city field, the plants have come from all over. You find species from other continents that escaped from gardens or from agriculture. There will be pansies, dandelions and Queen Anne’s lace that were brought over by earlier generations of immigrants as garden ornamentals.
“Stick around long enough, be observant. You will find a whole world you never knew was there,” Latour suggests, as he squats before a clump of campion. “You will learn about insects, small mammals and plants and trees. And each of them will have a most amazing story to tell.”
Roger Latour is author of the Guide de la Flore Urbaine (Fides, 2009.) It is a beautifully photographed guide to more than 200 species of plants, flowers and trees that grow in and around Montreal. Available in bookstores, in French only.