Individual Plant Exchange (Until Sept 30, 2023)
- Donor:
- Make sure your plants are not genetically modified nor cultivars and are native to Ontario or Québec. You can confirm by checking in VASCAN.
- Please make sure that the seeds or plants you are donating comes from a trusted source.
- The list will be regularly monitored and plants without proper sources and non-native plants will be deleted from the list.
- We encourage you to post any updates to the plant list on social media (Facebook, or Instagram).
- Recipient:
- You can post your request on the list.
- You do not have to donate plants to contact the donor.
- You are responsible for picking up the plants.
- We encourage you to donate seeds to the seed library when we will hold our exchange event this fall.
- If you do not find the plant you are looking for, we encourage you to post your request on our social media pages.
native plant scavenger hunt (Until Oct 31, 2023)
Objective
- The objective of the scavenger hunt is to find native plants from a pre-set list to earn points.
- The team that earns the most points at the end of the scavenger hunt wins.
- Bragging rights will be awarded to the team with the most points.
- The list of plants to find is available here.
Time
- This is not a race.
- The event lasts all spring-summer-fall and ends on October 31, 2023.
- Players can join at any time during the scavenger hunt.
Teams
- Players are encouraged to participate in teams and to reach out to others to visit their gardens.
- Each team should be made up of no more than 10 members.
- Teams can be virtual, but in-person participation is encouraged to meet community members.
- Each team must select a team captain. A team’s captain will be contacted if there are any questions about any of the team’s submissions. The team captain must agree to share their email address as a means for the judges to contact them. Personal information will be destroyed after the event.
- Teams are encouraged to come up with a team name. Two (2) bonus points will be awarded to the most original team name – to be decided by the judges.
Finding items
- A numbered list will be shared of the native plants that need to be found.
- Plants must not be picked, cut or dug up - photos must be taken of rooted plants (see below).
- Plants must be in the wild, in a public garden, in a team member’s home garden including in containers, or in the garden of someone who has given their permission for photos to be taken.
- Plants cannot be from nurseries, vendors, stores or any other location that sells plants.
- No trespassing. Plants cannot be included from the home garden of anyone who has not provided permission for photos to be taken of their garden.
- Caution must be exercised so as to not cause harm to any plants while taking photos.
- Teams may help each other out – plants may be included from the home garden of a member of another team.
Taking photos
- When you find a plant on the list, you must take a photo of the plant.
- Photos must include a piece of paper with the team’s name, the date and the plant’s number from the list.
- The photos must show the plants’ flower(s) or the spikelet(s) of grasses.
- For bonus points, additional photos may be submitted of the plants’ seed pods/seed heads, its fruit, its seeds once they have been removed from the seed pods/seed heads or fruit, and/or a unique identifying feature of the leaves or stem. This means that, to earn bonus points, photos may need to be taken of the same species (though not necessarily the exact same plant) at different times of the year.
- Photos from the Internet are not allowed.
- Photos taken prior to the start of the scavenger hunt are not allowed.
- Teams may help each other out – one team may take a photo on behalf of another team. However, that photo must include the name of the team submitting the photo, along with the date and list number.
- Photos must be uploaded to the team’s folder created in Google Drive for the scavenger hunt. Each team will have its own folder to upload their photos.
- Teams are encouraged to submit their photos as soon as the photos are taken to allow time for the judges to view the submissions.
- Photos submitted for the scavenger hunt will be deleted after the game is over unless permission is granted for the Ottawa Seed Library to keep them.
- The Ottawa Wildflower Seed Library would be grateful for teams with higher resolution cameras to submit high quality photos and grant permission to reuse them on social media. This is not mandatory to participate, but would be greatly appreciated.
Earning points
- There are 50 plants on the list.
- A team earns one (1) point for each plant found. Plants must be blooming and the submissions must show the flower(s) or the spikelet(s) of grasses.
- For each plant, one (1) bonus point can be earned for an additional photo of the seed pod / seed head / fruit.
- For each plant, one (1) bonus point can be earned for an additional photo of the seeds once they have been removed from the seed pod / seed head / fruit.
- For each plant, one (1) bonus point can be earned for an additional photo of a unique identifying feature of the leaves or stems - for example, hairy stems, coloured stems, spines, leaf shape, alternate leaves, etc.
- A maximum of four (4) points can be earned for each plant on the list. Not all species will necessarily lend themselves to earning four points.
- Two (2) bonus points will be awarded to the most original team name – to be decided by the judges.
- There is no specific order in which to find the plants. However, plants flower and go to seed at different times, which will determine when the photos can be taken.
- If the incorrect plant is submitted, the submission will not be accepted and the team captain will be notified. A new submission is allowed.