This volunteer is creating a world that buzzes with life

Written By Peter Allan

Danielle Romaine handing out seeds at Mille-Isles Festival Day for Sierra Youth. Photo by: Fabio Almeida

 

By Patricia Lane & Danielle Romaine

Danielle Romaine is creating a beautifully flowered world that buzzes with life. The 27-year-old from Montreal, Que., volunteers with Let's Plant, a project of Sierra Club Canada in partnership with Dutchman’s Gold, an Ontario-based honey and beehive wellness company, to help plant 10 million wildflowers and plant seeds across Canada. In 2025, she ensured 500,000 seeds were planted in Quebec.

Tell us about this project.

A portion of every Dutchman’s Gold purchase goes to buy seeds and contribute to Let’s Plant. We give the seeds away and educate people about how to germinate and plant them in whatever space they have available. We staff tables at community events, go on hikes and trail walks to spread seeds, bring them to elementary school classrooms, provide them to not-for-profits to give to their supporters and work with apiaries to grow wildflower farms for their bees.

Montreal’s insectarium donated specimen vials that hold these tiny seeds well. We also use plain manila envelopes or even salt and pepper shakers! An eighth of a teaspoon of seeds will flower on a metre of land and, of course, they are quite hardy and will grow in lots of places without first-rate soil and even in cracks in the sidewalk.

There are 3,600 species of the pollinators essential to sustaining life in North America. Unfortunately, habitat loss means a third of our native bees are endangered and two of five other pollinators, like butterflies, are also at risk. Let’s Plant aims to empower everyone to restore lost pollinator habitats and to track future growth and development through INaturalist, a citizen science program.

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Peter Allan
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