Stewardship Projects
The ecological stewardship team at Ruthven Park continues to be busy with several ongoing projects. See below for some highlights of what has been done recently and what is yet to come!
Partners in Preservation
Ruthven Park National Historic Site extends sincere thanks to Altra Construction Rentals Inc. for generously donating the use of your rental equipment to support repairs to one of our outbuilding roofs. Your time and commitment to our conservation efforts are truly appreciated, and your contribution helps us continue caring for the grounds and facilities that make Ruthven Park such a valued community resource.
Butterfly Meadow Restoration
In our ongoing stewardship efforts at Ruthven Park we are consistently working to combat non-native, predatory, and invasive species. Several methods are used including: manual pulling, chemical treatment, prescribed burning, and mowing. Most recently we embarked on the last option with the assistance of Alex’s Eves and Siding. We tasked Alex with using his forestry mulching equipment to clear our Butterfly Meadow area and he was certainly up for the task.
Meadows are a stage of natural succession and if left alone will eventually turn back into forested areas. Mowing like this can be used to help manage the takeover of woody stemmed plants, such as Dogwood and Black Walnut. Thus, to preserve the meadow as it stands, management like mowing or burning must be done. Mowing removes the predatory species and encourages the native species to come up instead.
This process is a cyclical one with mowing occurring approximately every two years.
We are very grateful for the work that Alex put in and we are eagerly anticipating the return of the beautiful native wildflowers this spring!
This project was made possible by funding received from the Grand River Conservation Foundation. Thank you!
Invasive Species Management
Anyone familiar with nature knows the devastating impacts that invasive species can have on the environment. From the smallest seed, invasive species can take over a landscape and prevent anything else from succeeding there. At Ruthven Park we work hard each year to remove several invasive plant species including, but not limited to, Japanese Barberry, Garlic Mustard, Multiflora Rose, Autumn Olive and Common Buckthorn. Work to remove these invasive species involves manual, chemical, and mechanical treatment.
In 2025, we received funding from the Invasive Species Centre to help conduct invasive species removal work with the help of local community volunteers and high school classes. Through this funding we were able to host public and educational invasive species pull events, an invasive species open house and directly support the work done at the annual Haldimand Children’s Water Festival. Many thanks to our volunteers who attended our pull events and the students who participated with their classes.
We are grateful for the support from the Invasive Species Centre and look forward to continuing the work of invasive species removal in the future.