Renovations prompt a change in plans
Most of the former tenants of The Village Shoppes in Elmira have found new homes elsewhere
THE VILLAGE SHOPPES ARE looking pretty bare these days.
All but one of the tenants have moved out of the Church Street West location in Elmira.
Earlier this year The Kain Group, which owns the building, announced its intentions to consult with the township and the BIA to renovate the building. Previous tenants have since found other locations in and out of town to operate their businesses.
Total Health Pharmacy remains in the building as the only tenant staying on for the renovations.
Pamer Chiropractor and HMC Renewed Wellness moved to the Elmira Wellness Centre in the former township hall on Arthur Street.
The Art of Coffee relocated to its new location next to the library last fall after spending six months in the Village Shoppes.
Flow Café shut its doors at the end of January, and 123 Trade With Me has also closed up shop.
Elegant Fabrics used to be in the basement and moved out of the Village Shoppes at the end of February. They opened their new location near Elora at the beginning of May.
Donna Smith and daughter Lyric Pauley bought Village Pet Food Shoppe from previous owner Steve Thur. The mother-daughter duo relocated to Industrial Drive where Perks Coffee House used to be. Pauley’s Shampoochies Pet Grooming business is under the same roof, instead of operating out of her home.
They opened in the new location at the end of May.
“The other store was a store within a big wooden box and it was hidden inside. It was a big space, but it was dark and didn’t have street exposure until Steve put the grooming room in right at the front,” Smith said.
The store now has two walls of windows, making it nice and bright. Their retail space is only half
“Lambsquarters and Canada fleabane were neck and neck,” says survey coordinator David Bilyea, weed specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs in Ridgetown.
The last time such a survey was taken, in 2007, lambsquarters came in at No. 4. Bilyea figures its pervasiveness moved it into the top spot.
“Farmers everywhere fight it,” he says. “It’s our most common weed and it’s very persistent.”
The survey results reflect Ontario’s changing landscape for weeds, and farmers’ ability to identify them.
For example, Canada fleabane wasn’t even in the top 10 worst weeds in 2007. But with the popularity of no till, it moved from the sides of fields into the fields themselves. Its resistance to glyphosate has compounded the problem.
“Farmers who have it just don’t know what to do,” says Bilyea. “They are trying hard to get rid of it but control measures are not 100 per cent.”
And even farmers who don’t have Canada fleabane call it one of the province’s worst weeds … in eastern Ontario, where it’s much less common in fields, farmers still rated it in the top 10.
“People are watching for it, and they’re concerned about getting it in their fields,” says Bilyea. In fact, farmers are so concerned about Canada fleabane that it knocked the 2007 champ, common ragweed, down to third place.
Bilyea says producers are worried about resistance to weeds other than Canada fleabane too, such as giant ragweed and common ragweed (both made the top 10 list).
Other changes include producers’ view of grasses. In 2007, what was identified as quackgrass came in at No. 2, and crabgrass squeaked in at No. 10. This year, though, neither made the worstoffenders list, although producers still mentioned a wide variety of grasses.
Bilyea figures that stems from a higher level of producer knowledge.
“With greater access to electronic technology, farmers can more accurately identify the weeds in their fields,” he says. “All you have to do is take a photo of it, send it off and quickly you know what you’re dealing with. That wasn’t the case in 2007.”
Even with new technology though, some weeds are extremely difficult to distinguish between, such as the three pigweed varieties: green, smooth, and redrooted. They appear on the survey simply as pigweeds, and come in at No. 5 as the province’s worst weed.
Overall, to help with identification, Bilyea and others maintain a weed garden – “trimmed and weeded,” he says – near the greenhouse complex on the University of Guelph Ridgetown campus. There, visitors can view 208 specimens of weeds found in Ontario.
The garden is 40 years old this year, so it sports most conventional weeds along with new arrivals found in fields and lawns, other than nasty offenders such as poison ivy and dog strangling vine.
And finally, back to the weed list: marijuana didn’t make the top 10. But farmers who find it mysteriously growing in their fields certainly consider it a pest, as do police, who get summoned to destroy it.