THUNDER BAY — A "massive boost" in plant production is only one of the changes that has coun. Shelby Ch'ng excited about ongoing renovations at the Thunder Bay Botanical Conservatory.
She recently took a tour of the city-owned conservatory to see the much-needed upgrades and redesign in person.
“What many people don't realize is that it isn't just the tropical conservatory piece that's access to the public. It's all the greenhouse spaces in the back,” said Ch'ng.
The conservatory renovations have allowed their growing operations to produce 100,000 more plants per year.
According to Ch’ng, this increase in production allows the conservatory to partner with Lakehead University and Lakehead Regional Conservation Authority to perform more education and research on plant life that contributes to the city’s urban spaces.
“We're just going from strength to strength with this,” said Ch'ng.
“30,000 plants were grown beforehand and now it's going to be they're ramping up to 130,000 plants. These go anywhere from like a conservation authority to public parks and research. It's a whole slew of things and it's just the sheer capacity that we can output now in a good environment that is healthy for the plants and also provides a service for the public,” she said.
Additional renovations include fixing broken piping, smoothing out the floor, wheelchair accessibility and a new boiler system.
“It's all automated systems. There are alerts for different temperatures and humidity levels so we can properly grow plants,” said Ch’ug.
Ch’ng said she has advocated for the Conservatory since she was first elected to city council in 2014.
She said she is “proud to champion their cause for some of the improvements” from the council side.
“I just want to shout out to the friends of the conservatory, who've been there before I even got on council, they were the only ones doing the deputation during the budget, just really slugging it out for this and the admin staff who believed in the project and found the money because it didn't all come from the tax dollar on the city side, we were able to leverage it with other grants that were available,” said Ch’ng.
