Hendrie Valley #071028

Description:

Hendrie Valley occupies a series of terraces on the Iroquois Plain. It is at the mouth of Grindstone Creek. Although quite disturbed, it provides habitat for the nationally and provincially rare Eastern Spiney Softshell. It is a Class 2 wetland.

Vegetation:

Includes ridges of red oak and valleys of black willow and also has sassafras and balsam poplar.

Landform:

Lower section is on sand plain. The upper section on the Aldershot bar, a large sand and gravel bayhead bar which currently forms the southeast bank of Grindstone Creek south of Highway 403. Large meandering valley in reworked till of Lake Ontario Plain.

Sunfish Pond embankment restoration project

Royal Botanical Gardens, in conjunction with GO Transit, is implementing an ambitious restoration project for the Sunfish Pond embankment and associated parts of the Valley Inn area of our Hendrie Valley Nature Sanctuary.

As part of a billion dollar expansion program funded by the Government of Canada and the Province of Ontario, GO Transit is adding a new rail track on the Lakeshore West rail line between the Desjardins Canal and GO Transit's Burlington Station. The new track allows GO Transit to improve rail service to their Aldershot and Hamilton GO Stations, as well as promoting and encouraging the use of public transit throughout their Lakeshore West corridor. To the north-west of Sunfish Pond, the embankment currently carries two rail tracks. As part of GO Transit's expansion project, this embankment requires widening on the south-West side to accommodate a new third track.

Visitors to the site will notice vegetation is being cleared from the railway embankment at the west side of Sunfish Pond. Built in the mid-19th century to bring railway traffic into Hamilton, this embankment consists of fill placed across the former outlet of Cootes Paradise. Most of the vegetation that has succeeded in colonizing it is non-native, including dense patches of Amur Honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii), European Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica), and Siberian Elm (Ulmus pumila).

The GO Transit expansion project allows us to replace those species with locally-grown native tallgrass savannah plants, including Black Oak (Quercus velutina), Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) and Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa). These are the sort of species that would have historically occurred all along the High Level area.

We are also undertaking restoration projects directed towards the rare turtle populations that reside in this area (Hendrie Valley Nature Sanctuary is home to six native turtle species) including the construction of nesting beds and basking platforms.

The slopes of Hendrie Valley are comprised of mixed deciduous forest. Its sheltered, southerly exposure provides a reasonably warm, dry microclimate, creating a unique habitat that is home to several rare and uncommon plants and animals including many Carolinian species.

A 50-hectare marsh lies in Hendrie Valley where the lower portion of Grindstone Creek flows.

Wetlands

Overview

Healthy wetlands are critical to the environmental, social and economic health of the Great Lakes Basin. A wetland is a natural water filtration system, removing suspended particles, nutrients, even toxic chemicals from our water supply. A wetland is also a natural reservoir holding back flood waters in the spring and slowly releasing them during the dry summer months. A wetland is a crucial breeding ground, nursery and haven for birds, fish and other wildlife. It is a key component in the cycling of water, carbon and oxygen through the environment.

For too long, wetlands have been treated as second-class property, under appreciated assets that would be better drained for agricultural use or filled in and developed. Over the past 100 years, approximately two-thirds of the wetlands in southern Ontario have been lost. And those that remain continue to be degraded or destroyed by toxic run-off, non-native invasive species, sedimentation, fluctuating water levels, and development.

What is a wetland?

A wetland represents the transition between dry land and deeper, open water. Usually covered by shallow water for part or all of the year, the term wetland also applies to any damp area where the water table is near or at the surface. There are marshes, swamps, ponds, bogs and fens; the classification depends on where the wetland is located, what grows in it, and how it gets its water. All this water creates a unique and particularly rich environment: wet soils are colonized by water tolerant plants that attract, shelter and feed a wide variety of amphibians, fish, birds and animals. Under the Canada-Ontario Agreement Respecting the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem (coa), the governments of Canada and Ontario have recognized both the intrinsic environmental necessity and economic value of wetlands. Together with private and public sector partners, Canada and Ontario have undertaken field studies that show the value of wetlands, as well as projects that protect threatened sites and rehabilitate damaged ones.

Battling carp in Grindstone Creek

Hemmed in by highways, most of its watershed transformed by farming and housing developments, the marsh at the mouth of Grindstone Creek is a threatened oasis of green at the extreme western end of Hamilton Harbour. Much of the aquatic vegetation in the river’s mouth, as well as the native game fish that spawned there and the water birds that nested and fed there, have disappeared over the past 50 years. While a number of environmental stresses have played a role in the site's decline, the primary culprit has been the bottom-feeding carp, introduced into the Great Lakes in the 1800s.

“You have to control sediment and nutrient inputs throughout the watershed. You have to allow more natural fluctuations in water levels in order to re-establish the natural vegetation,” says Restoration Project Manager Len Simser with the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) in Burlington. These factors are being addressed by long-term and complex Hamilton Harbour Remedial Action Plan (rap) projects, he says. “But if you don’t control the carp, none of the rest of it matters. This is an area where the RBG has a great deal of experience.”

The restoration of Grindstone Creek and nearby Cootes Paradise are both initiatives of Hamilton Harbour’s RAP. In keeping with their commitments under COA, the governments of Canada and Ontario have played a significant role in the Grindstone Creek rehabilitation project, along with the RBG (which owns the property), local municipalities, private foundations and a host of area businesses and individuals.

The harbour’s huge carp population physically uproots aquatic plants and stirs up the mud while digging around the bottom looking for food. The muddy water prevents sunlight from reaching submerged plants, turning the estuary into a dirty barren bowl. The carp also compete with native species for resources, and raid the nests of spawning game fish. “They’re a very hardy fish,” says Simser, “and they tend to keep the environment in the kind of degraded condition that’s favourable to them.”

Conservationists have been trying to control the carp sporadically since the 1950s, usually through netting and fishing programs. In 1996,a carp barrier, equipped with a fishway, was installed in the narrow channel separating the harbour from Cootes Paradise. This has been very successful at keeping marauding carp out of this important fish and plant nursery area.

To protect the marshland in Grindstone Creek, a series of berms were built along the sides of the old creek channel. The carp are confined to the deeper water, while in the shallower floodplain the natural marshland vegetation – cattails, bulrushes, arrowhead and pondweed – have started to recover.

The berms also trap much of the sediment that is carried down from the watershed and protect the eroded creek banks. More than 100,000 discarded Christmas trees collected by the municipality have been compressed to make some 1,000 metres of berm. Spawning pike and bass have access to the enclosed areas through an adjustable opening, which is then closed to the later spawning carp.

"We approached the undertaking based on the RAP philosophy," says Simser. "You remove the stresses at source, where practically possible, and let the natural regeneration processes take their course." The restoration team has also established a small nursery to supply aquatic plants, built weirs to control water levels on floodplain ponds, protected fish spawning and nursery habitat, and constructed a series of boardwalks and interpretive trails for visitors.

"You can see a visible difference," says Simser, "the water's clearer, plants are growing, there are people fishing and bird-watching again." But there is still work to do. Many of the other RAP initiatives are unfinished and periodic high water levels are causing problems. A marsh needs a natural cycle of high and low water levels to thrive; only a few plant species can survive the kind of artificially managed lake levels imposed on the area. "It's a work in progress," he says. "We haven't reached the endpoint yet."

Grindstone Creek Waterfront Trail

Trail Construction: 1994

It is 1km in length and joins both Cherry Hill Gate and Sunfish Pond.

A boardwalk was constructed in August 1995. This boardwalk enables people to visit the creek mouth marsh.

Marsh Development

* The marsh in Grindstone Creek has reduced from 37.8ha. (in 1934) to 5.1ha (in 1985). Majority of the loss occurred in Valley Inn Road. Possible reasons have been suggested for the loss of marsh and they include:

· increased nutrient levels from the

· Waterdown sewage treatment plant;

· damage by carp;

· siltation;

· decreased light penetration; and

· increased water levels

Four areas of concern are:

* Cherry Hill Gate marsh,

* Long Pond,

* Elbow Pond

* Sunfish Pond

The three ponds (20ha.) are able to provide suitable nursery habitats for the pikes and other species if carp are controlled. Largemouth bass would also spawn at the three ponds.

Marsh Stressors

Several human-induced stresses have caused habitat loss in both Cootes Paradise and Grindstone Creek marshes. The five human-induced marsh stresses are:

- Turbidity

- High nutrient levels

- Sediment accumulation

- Overgrazing by carp and geese

- Lake Ontario water level control

HENDRIE VALLEY/GRINDSTONE CREEK

Grindstone Creek originates above the Niagara Escarpment in Flamborough. It drains an area of 90 square kilometres making it one of the main tributaries discharging into the northwest-end of Hamilton Harbour.

The Waterdown Sewage Treatment Plant discharges into the creek in Waterdown, upstream from lower Grindstone. A 50-hectare marsh lies in Hendrie Valley where the lower portion of Grindstone Creek flows. This highly productive, shallow wetland, northeast of Cootes Paradise, provides crucial spawning, nursery and adult habitat for many native fish as well as food and shelter for a variety of birds, mammals, amphibians and insects.

The slopes of Hendrie Valley are comprised of mixed deciduous forest. Its sheltered, southerly exposure provides a reasonably warm, dry microclimate, creating a unique habitat that is home to several rare and uncommon plants and animals including many Carolinian species.

The Province of Ontario has classified Grindstone Creek as an Area of Natural and Scientific Interest (ANSI) and the Municipality of Halton has listed the creek as an Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA).

RBG Background

Royal Botanical Gardens was established as an independent entity in 1941 by an act of the provincial government but the project traces its origins to the late 1920's when the City of Hamilton began acquiring land for the beautification of the city's northwest entrance. The RBG was the fruition of the timely and far-sighted imagination of the Hamilton Board of Parks Management. In the 1920's, under the energetic chairmanship of Thomas Baker McQuesten, it recognized the need for a counterpart in southwestern Ontario to the then only-two botanical gardens in Canada: the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa and the University of British Columbia Gardens in Vancouver.

Today Royal Botanical Gardens enjoys a national reputation based on its first-class horticultural collection and conservation area. Both provide material for its extensive educational programme and serve as an outdoor laboratory for scientific research.

In the 1920's, the main road from Toronto to Hamilton was lined with an untidy assortment of billboards, gas stations and undistinguished dwellings. The open waterway between Hamilton Harbour and the marshy inlet known as Cootes Paradise provided an unpleasant view of papered shacks, boat houses and sundry sheds the length of the shoreline. This typical industrial blight was to be improved upon by the introduction of a parkway which would run through landscaped gardens over reclaimed Cootes Paradise. The new McMaster University campus was to be located at the southwestern end of the marshland.

The decision to build the Gardens reflected the philosophy of the conservation and parks movements which had become popular in the United States in the second half of the last century and which were in direct reaction to the damage caused by the early industrialization of the emerging cities. The movement was further assisted by the "city beautiful" crusade of the 1890's. McQuesten was a keen student of the cultivation of plants and garden design and he convinced the Board of Parks Management to include a botanical garden within the redevelopment and beautification scheme proposed for the northwest entrance to the city.

The new bridge, opened in 1932, spanned the waterway between Burlington Bay and Cootes Paradise and provided the impetus to launch the beautification scheme. An abandoned gravel pit located along the side of the road leading to the bridge would be transformed into a rock garden. Designed by Carl Borgstrom and began in 1929, the rock garden converted the pit into an intricate landscape of picturesque winding paths, hidden flights of steps, ledges, crevices and pools.

That same year work began on the proposed site for McMaster University and a formal sunken garden was constructed to serve as entrance to both the university and the western end of the gardens. The Board of Parks Management established a "Botanical Garden Section" within the beautification project and in 1930 McQuesten sought royal assent to name the 400-acre Westdale site, located adjacent to the university, the Royal Botanical Gardens.

The Board of Parks Management subsequently received the Hendrie Valley Farm, 122 acres of sloping woodland and broad valley running north from Burlington Bay, as a gift from George M. Hendrie. By 1932 the Westdale lands were combined with the northwest entrance, including the Rock Gardens and the Hendrie Valley Farm and together became known as the Royal Botanical Gardens.

This decision radically altered the original concept of the Gardens changing it from the traditional closed and cultivated preserve, where the world is represented in microcosm, to one that reached out to the public domain and encompassed the larger natural world. By taking this decision the RBG marked a shift away from the 19th century concept of the botanical garden to the 20th century concern with conservation and public education and, as a corollary, with the garnering of public support for the Gardens. By the late 20th century, most botanical gardens had evolved to combine scientific, educational, aesthetic and recreational objectives. Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton, Burlington, Dundas and Flamborough is an accurate reflection of this evolution.

McQuesten later became Minister of Highways and Public Works in the Ontario government and by 1941, when he initiated establishment of the Gardens as an entity separate from the Board of Parks Management, the RBG had grown to 1,200 acres. Despite the economic depression of the Thirties and the onset of the Second World War, by the late 1940's, the land base of the Gardens had grown to almost 2,000 acres at the western extremity of Lake Ontario. With the subsequent addition of another 400 acres on the north shore of Cootes Paradise and the inclusion of the triangular parcel of land across from the Hendrie Valley Farm, the essential configuration of the Royal Botanical Gardens as it exists today had emerged.

Following the end of the Second World War and completion of the major land acquisition, the formal laying out of the Gardens was undertaken under the direction of Carl Borgstrom. In contrast to many early 20th-century landscape architects who sought to impose their Beaux-arts plans upon nature, Borgstrom, influenced by the well-known American landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmstead, was more concerned with environmental conservation and sought to design gardens which would as pleasing as possible to the general public.

His recommendations called for great swatches of colours and textures for all seasons with a strong spring showing of masses of lilacs, crabapples and spring bulbs. His tree selections highlighted fall and winter colours as well as reflecting botanical interest. His summer proposal included a rose garden and climbing plant section. Much of the Royal Botanical Gardens' present-day physical attraction is attributable to Borgstrom's ideas dating from the early 1940's.

In 1958 the colonnaded red brick building situated opposite the Hendrie property was opened as a public centre and focal point. It has provided space for a library, auditorium, workshop and herbarium over the subsequent years.Of the Gardens 2,700 acres, more than 300 are cultivated while the rest remains a managed natural area. The living plan collection is extremely well established with six gardens containing 50 plant collections. Well classified and labeled, these high-quality, well-displayed plants have won the Royal Botanical Gardens international recognition for its iris and lilac collections.

Several of the Gardens' main attractions remain those initiated in the late 1940's: the Rock Garden and the Laking Garden. The arboretum, while envisaged at the same period, was not launched until the early 1950's when the entrance and parking circle were built. The glory of the arboretum is the Katie Osborne Lilac Garden which now boasts the largest living collection of lilacs in the world.

In 1962, J. Austin Floyd was selected to create a formal design for Hendrie Park, the striking feature of which is the two-acre Centennial Rose Garden. A Scented Garden and Medicinal Garden were added in the mid-1980's; the former containing plans cultivated for their fragrance while the latter provides opportunities for research for those investigating the connection between medicine and plants.

The Mediterranean Garden, opened in 1986, complements the RBG's outdoor collection as its Mediterranean plants, requiring hot arid summers and cool damp winters, are at their best when the outdoor collection is least interesting. The Conservation Area consists of marshland, a shallow lake, woodland, meadow, escarpment and agricultural land with emphasis on ecosystem management and entire habitats. With 40 walking trails making its different habitats accessible to the public, it has proven a most appreciated addition to the Gardens. The Cootes Paradise Sanctuary, established in 1927, remains the outstanding natural acreage within the Conservation Area.

In addition, since 1961, the RBG has operated a Nature Interpretive Programme using lectures, demonstrations, exhibitions and pamphlets to introduce the general public to the geology, history and wildlife of the Conservation Area. The RBG runs interpretive programmes illustrating the character and diversity of plan and animal life in the Hendrie Valley and that section of the Niagara Escarpment known as the Rock Chapel Sanctuary.

Since it was initially established as an integral part of a larger civic composition, the Royal Botanical Gardens may be characterized as a particular type of 20th-century botanical garden which broke boundaries and saw itself as part of a larger network of habitable places. Developed in three distinct phases over a 60-year period, it is the only Canadian botanical garden to have maintained consistent growth and development. Moreover, it is the result of the joint effort of talented landscape architects, botanists and plan curators, thereby reflecting a historical and aesthetic character that is unique in Canada.

The Royal Botanical Gardens was declared a site of national historic and architectural significance subsequent to a request to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada by Stan Keyes, Member of Parliament for Hamilton West. The Board recommended the Royal Botanical Gardens in recognition of its status as one of Canada's most important botanical gardens distinguished by a first-class horticultural and a world-renowned lilac collection.