The Noons Creek Hatchery is being overwhelmed by invasive plant species. But they’re not weeds or blackberries choking the paths and walkways leading to the volunteer-run salmon hatchery and water quality testing laboratory.
Rather, it’s daffodils and tulips taking over.
The Port Moody Ecological Society that runs the hatchery is currently inundated with twice as many bags of daffodil and tulip bulbs the group normally has on hand for its annual fundraising bulb sale that’s a part of the Fingerling Festival, said Dave Bennie, the society’s vice president. Except the festival was almost a month ago.
The society sells the bulbs that are donated by the city from its gardens and planters after the spring flower season has passed to help pay for programs at the hatchery. But this year’s late arrival of warm weather meant the daffodils and tulips only recently started to peter out. So the bulbs, which can be stored in a dry place for replanting in the fall to bloom next spring, have been arriving in hefty plastic bags. And they keep on arriving, as parks crews dig up and replant municipal gardens.
In fact, there’s so many bags of bulbs they’re taking over almost every inch of floor and shelf space in the hatchery, pouring out the door, clogging access to the big water tanks where the fingerlings are raised before they’re released into Noons Creek.
Bennie said the Society was able to get through this year’s festival by selling the bulbs from miniature potted daffodils that had been donated to the city by the developer Onni. But with more bulbs arriving from the city every day, the clock is ticking.
Not only does Bennie and his crew of volunteers want to reclaim the hatchery, the longer the bulbs and the attached green stalks sit in plastic bags, the more likely they’ll go mouldy.
“We’ve got to get rid of them, because they can’t stay in the bags too long,” said Bennie. Volunteers have cut off the stalks and placed some bulbs on plastic trays to stay dry just to create some space, but that task is normally left to gardeners after they buy their bag of bulbs.
So until all the bulbs are gone, the annual fundraising sale is ongoing, said Bennie. Gardeners can pick up a big bag of daffodil, tulip and narcissus bulbs for $5 at the hatchery, from 9-11 a.m. every day of the week except Sunday. The hatchery is located at 300 Ioco Rd., next to the Port Moody Rec Centre.
