Invasives Coming to a Bathroom Near You?

March 27, 2017

As part of our residency at the Adanac Fieldhouse, we have been working to engage the surrounding community to share the story about local invaders.  Our suite takes up one third of the building and public washrooms and storage take up the remainder. While we have signage up outside our suite, we don't get many visitors. Outside our windows, however, we do see a steady stream of people throughout the day visiting the washrooms facilities - local residents, families using the playground, joggers, dog walkers, seniors, gardeners, soccer players, city staff and lots of couriers and truck drivers.

How could we get their attention on this issue? It seemed natural that some of our outreach efforts should migrate into the bathrooms.. .after some trial-and-error about what would work in a public space, we've settled on a weed-of-the week "wanted poster" theme. We regularly change the species focus and time plant appearances when learning to identify them is most relevant (for example, knotweed when it starts growing in the neighbourhood and English holly at Christmas time). We're still considering how to incorporate real plants into this outreach endeavor. We'll keep you posted and in the meantime, don't be surprised if you have an opportunity to learn about invasives on your next public washroom visit!

Our tremendous thanks to the City of Vancouver's Fieldhouse Activation Program for hosting us in our space and to Danita and Rebecca, great collaborators when it comes to bathroom outreach engagement!