Allan Arthur, St. Williams Nursery & Ecology Centre

January 4, 2016

Story by: Ron Baker

Photograph by: Susan Crawford

Simcoe Rotarians Hear About St. Williams Nursery & Ecology Centre Successes

At its first meeting in 2016, the Rotary Club of Simcoe, listened in rapt, even amazed, attention to Allan Arthur, M.Sc., President and Senior Ecologist, as he gave a well illustrated presentation about a new St. Williams Ecology business. An historic Forestry Farm site has been transformed into a 400 acre pioneer in 21st Century ecological renewal and preservation of native Ontario species. It is a viable, profitable, certainly trail-blazing, new business model. This is exciting news of the rapid shift in market sentiment in forestry, horticulture and ecologically sustaining landscape projects that promises the restoration of previously damaged or threatened environments.

 

Allan Arthur demonstrated, in his well polished visual arts presentation, how the St. Williams Nursery & Ecology Centre operates over 400 acres of field production and 10 acres of greenhouse space in Southern Ontario making it the largest source-identified native plant nursery in the province. He noted they are unique in the nursery trade in being the only major supplier that specializes exclusively in native seed and plants for biodiversity conservation of Ontario native wild-type plant genetics. He said "we can guarantee and can verify the origin of all our source-identified native seed and plants as true Ontario wild-type by seed zone. Imports and cultivars are not appropriate for the ecological landscape and, in fact, threaten Ontario’s natural biodiversity. We carry over 300 native species of trees, shrubs, wildflowers, sedges and grasses in a wide variety of formats. We also carry native source-identified seed mixes that can be customized to your requirements." (For details see: http://www.stwilliamsnursery.com/)

 

 

A Cute Little Fellow Concerned About A Plentiful Food Supply And Biodiversity!

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Editor's Note: Sometimes there is a story within a story. See caption below.

Rotarian Joan Sherlow confesses when thanking the speaker to nursing a Texas Longhorn baby calf of "neighbour" Alan Arthur. No bull!