Our shared garden: The importance of native plants

Gardens awaken the soul. There’s something beyond measurement that happens when hands plunge into cold, damp earth, ready to conjure whatever’s in the mind’s eye. I sink blue vervain seedlings into my little plot for their showy spikes of violet-blue blooms, a few swamp milkweed seedlings to feed the butterflies and provide shelter for their eggs, iris along the border because their smell reminds me of grape bubblegum, and at my front door, I hang a basket of red cultivated geraniums — my Nonno’s favourite. Gardens can read like a roadmap of our experiences; a poetry of plants. And each time we interact with a garden, it’s an acknowledgement of our duality with nature: we have the power to shape her, and we are her. In the end, I’m just another creature digging in the dirt.

Tending a garden can be a radical act, too. It can be a source of nourishment in a food desert, a medicine cabinet, a connection to cultures and ways of life that were nearly extinguished in some places, a way of building community in an individualistic society. And for a growing number of us, gardening is a grassroots effort to restore damaged ecosystems and reconcile our relationship with the land.

Take a step inside Mount Meager to learn all about this volcano that last erupted 2,400 years ago, plus testing space probes that could be used in the search for life on one of Saturn's moons

RCGS Fellow Christian Stenner joins Explore to talk about his adventures inside Canada’s most active volcano. Last year, the Calgary native and one of the world’s leading cave explorers was part of the first RCGS Trebek Initiative grantees. That grant helped fund his expedition into the Mount Meager volcano, just north of Vancouver on the B.C. coast. There he and his team made some amazing discoveries about a very active volcanic range that last erupted 2,400 years ago. Stenner’s expedition into the glacial ice caves leading to the volcano’s vents was partly to see how close Mount Meager is to erupting again. He also teamed up with NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists to test out space probes that could be used in the search for life on one of Saturn’s moons, Encelados, which has a similar landscape to Meager’s fire and ice combination.

Plus: cross-border salmon tension, a clue in the eastern wolf debate, the role of weather in bison migration and evidence a near-mythical wolf once roamed Canada

By Tori Fitzpatrick and Olivia Wiens

Standing at a shoulder height of 11 feet and weighing six tons, it is hard to imagine that anything could scare the African elephant. However, as humans continue to encroach on elephant habitat, scientists have been on the lookout for a way to deter elephants from entering human areas without directly harming them.

Enter: African bees. They may be small, but when they sting, African bees release pheromones that cause other bees to swarm to the same site. If an elephant is stung just once it remembers the pheromones and avoids any sign of bees from then on.

Now, scientists are designing bee-inspired solutions to human-elephant conflict. Beehive fences — consisting of a wire connecting hanging bee hives — have an 80 per cent success rate in preventing elephants from entering residential areas and farmland. Another innovation, the bee BuzzBox, was developed to deter elephants without the risk of being stung. The BuzzBox mimics the sounds of real bees — enough to send an elephant fleeing in the other direction.

sweeping lush fields of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, and as a great destination for food lovers. A short drive from Charlottetown we stop at the picturesque village of Victoria-by-the-sea before making our way to the Mi’kmaq Culture Centre to learn more about the arts, culture and traditions of the Mi’kmaq. Our cycling adventure begins near Green Gables. We will travel along the coastline, discovering small communities, artisan stores, local cafés, heritage buildings, abandoned rail stations and endless sandy beaches at handlebar level. Complementing this unforgettable multi-day bike trip to one of the country’s best destinations for foodies, the tour will end with a farm tour and top culinary experience at Chef Michael Smith’s legendary country inn.
Meet your ambassador: Dave Brosha

Check out these other upcoming trips:
- Quebec birds and whales with Canadian Geographic
- Salish Sea expedition with Canadian Geographic
- Grizzly bears of Toba Inlet with Paul Zizka