Show from Sept 16, 2007 Tree Bylaw and Calendula

Good morning Gardeners. It’s another beautiful day in Manitoba. We are so blessed to live in this wonderful province. I just came back from Ontario, another beautiful province, but I am always glad to be home, where there is no smog and the wide open spaces let you breathe.

Well, this morning, I thought I would tell you a little about an old plant that grows extremely well here and self-seeds quite readily. I am talking about Calendula or pot marigold. This handy little plant is an ornamental annual, with daisy-like yellow and orange flowers. It grows to a height of about 24 inches and blooms well into fall. When I used to grow it, I found it self sowed as easily as cosmos, so a little goes a long way in the garden.

Calendula was widely used medicinally for years as an anti inflammatory to soothe wounds. The petals can also be used in salads as they are high in beta carotene. Today, however, scientists are looking at calendula or pot marigold as a commercial oil source. It is already used in cosmetics, in toothpaste and mouthwashes, baby wipes and shampoo as well as in moisturisers, creams, cleansers and toners. But that’s not all. Calendula oil is used in paints and is being favourably viewed as a replacement for alcohol as a drying agent because it doesn’t release volatile fumes into the atmosphere.

Well, this morning, we are going to take a look at the idea of a tree bylaw, an issue that arose a couple of years ago and scared the heck out of people who saw it as an intrusion of their property rights. But tree bylaws are not new. Vancouver has one. Toronto. The idea is to protect large trees from being arbitrarily removed without a good reason. Vancouver also requires that trees over 20 cm in diameter be replaced by a tree of equal size. In Toronto, the tree must be under 30 cm in diameter to be removed without a permit and tree vandals face a $10,000 fine.

Here in Winnipeg, a couple were fined $1500 for systematically destroying a crab apple tree on the boulevard in front of their property because they didn’t like cleaning up the fruit. Just last year, a lady called me very distraught because a neighbour had called in a tree service to chop down a birch tree on her property while she was out of town. Even thought the tree service was trespassing and the neighbour has maliciously destroyed her property, there were no consequences for this vandalism. And this woman is not alone. Mike Allen told me that a similar incident occurred when someone destroyed a neighbour’s evergreen tree at around the same time.

What are your thoughts on this issue? Should people be allowed to cut down significant trees even if they are on property they personally own? Currently, the Coalition to Save the Elms is working on a tree bylaw for Winnipeg that would protect heritage trees

You can email me at ddobbie@pegasuspublications.net or call 940-2716.