Coming soon to your mailbox in the Rosewood community
Upcoming Fall AGM and Dates
Rosewood residents are invited to our annual Fall General Meeting. This year a member of 42 Division will be coming to speak on frauds and scams and a little on cyber safety. Please join us to meet your neighbours and learn a little together.
Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Time: 7 to 9pm
Place: Calvary Logos Baptist Church (basement, please use west-side doors off the parking lot) at 241 Alexmuir Blvd.
We are grateful for the generosity of the church in allowing us to use their space again. If you require a wheelchair accessible entrance, please contact us ahead of the meeting so we can make arrangements for you.
Some other tentative dates to keep in your calendars:
February 21, 2026 – Rosewood partnered with the Alexmuir International Languages Program to bring back our neighbourhood Lunar New Year event
April 25, 2026 – Spring Community Clean Up
April 29, 2026 – Spring General Meeting
June 2025 newsletter
In case you missed our newsletter in your mailboxes this past spring, and to keep for future reference
June Planting in the Garden
It was a very hot day in June when a class of excited primary students were finally able to plant their seedlings (lovingly started in the winter! and cared for for many many months) into the ground at the Rosewood Pollinator Garden.
They planted sunflowers, swamp milk weed, Anise hysop, and butterfly milkweed. The students had sprouted these in the winter/spring this year. Thank you to our dedicated volunteers for your help!
Pollinator Garden Calendar
September 2025 – August 2026
The Rosewood Pollinator Garden Group in partnership with Alexmuir Junior Public School and the Scarborough Rosewood Community Association have created a printable PDF calendar featuring artwork by the young primary students who were involved with the pollinator gardens this school year.
Excerpt from the Calendar:
About the Calendar
This calendar features the imaginative and thoughtful artwork of students from Alexmuir Junior Public School. Each illustration is a student-created poster celebrating native plants and their crucial role in supporting pollinators.
Since fall 2024, students have been engaged in learning about pollination and the significance of pollinators through regular visits to the Rosewood Community Pollinator Gardens. They’ve observedplant life cycles and the wide array of pollinators that visit the gardens—including bees, butterflies, and birds—while discovering how native, pollinator-friendly plants contribute to healthy ecosystems.
Over the winter, the class worked with members of the Rosewood Pollinator Garden Group to winter sow native seeds. The students later planted the sunflowers and native seedlings they nurtured in both the Rosewood and Alexmuir Junior Public School Pollinator Gardens. This year, both gardens were awarded the City of Toronto’s PollinateTO grant in recognition of their community impact, a first for the Rosewood Community.
Through various fun hands-on activities, students also explored how pollinators are deeply connected to the food we eat. Did you know that pollinators like bees are responsible for about one-third of the world’s food supply? That’s every third bite on your plate. Yet, these essential creatures are in decline due to habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change.
In response, the students created persuasive posters to encourage others to grow native plants and provide food and shelter for pollinators. Their message is clear: we all have a role to play in protecting pollinators.
Printing Instructions: For the best results, print in colour, single-sided on letter-sized (8.5×11″) printer paper. Cardstock would look great as well, and can be printed double-sided to save paper. For quick and easy binding, use staples or bulldog clips along the top of the calendar.
You may download the PDF here. This is for personal use only. Please respect the hard work of these young artists and do not reproduce their work outside of this calendar. This is not to be sold for profit in any shape or form.
Rosewood Reads #5
Our book club resumed in April and we covered three books. It was quite a session and since May is busy for several of our members we will resume in June.
Here goes:
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
This novel gave us a peek at life in South Africa during apartheid. We saw the hardships Trevor Noah and his mother endured during and after apartheid. Laws were changing but many of the people’s attitudes towards non-white did not.
Trevor’s mother had strong religious faith and on Sundays their day was spent attending three churches. Many times they did not have a vehicle so they would have to take public transportation. In these situations they encountered unsavoury characters in which his mother would have to think quick on her feet to keep them safe. Her faith gave her the strength to deal with all the obstacles that arose, including coming close to her death.
Born a Crime was an eye-opening novel. We know Trevor Noah, the successful celebrity of today. It gave us renewed respect for him and what he had to endure through childhood to where he is today.
Why the title Born a Crime? Who is his father? What happened during his childhood? What happened to his mom? Read the novel to find the answers to these questions and many more you might have.
Triple Chocolate Cheesecake Murder by Joanne Fluke
From the title we thought this would be an interesting read. We enjoy a good mystery and triple chocolate cheesecake! But to our surprise the book was written more like a play for lack of better description. There are constant conversations between the characters and recipes throughout the novel. We almost lost sight that there was a murder we were trying to solve. Yes, there was a murder…read the novel if you want to know who was murdered or enjoy baking and would like to add to your recipe collection.
Just in case after reading the title you are feeling like baking a chocolate cheesecake, here is a link to a recipe I tried and it did not crack in the middle. Enjoy
The Maid by Nita Prose (Canadian Author)
In this novel, we are welcomed to a fine boutique hotel with an interesting staff. The assumption has been made that it takes place in Toronto but never indicated in the novel. Molly the maid, at first appears quite plain and takes things literally. But not everything is as it appears, especially Molly. Everyone underestimates her, especially when she is accused of murdering a hotel guest.
Would you like to meet the staff and find out what they are hiding? Who was the murdered guest? Did Molly, the maid do it? Read the novel and find out the answers to these and many more questions you probably have.
Several of us enjoyed this novel that it inspired us to read her next book, The Mystery Guest. You learn more about Molly and several of the other staff members while solving another murder.
Our next read will be in June and it is The Serviceberry by Robin Kimmerer.
Happy Reading!
Community Cleanup Saturday
We hope you can join us for Rosewood’s annual community cleanup!
Date: Saturday, April 26
Time: 10:30am-12:30pm
Location: Meet in front of Alexmuir Junior Public School, 95 Alexmuir Blvd.
Additional Notes:Bags and gloves will be supplied, but bring your own if you have extra.Students who need volunteer hours, please let us know you need us to sign for them when you arrive.Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult.The cleanup runs rain or shine, but so far it looks like only a slight chance of rain on Saturday!
Alexmuir’s 50th Anniversary Event
All former staff, students, and their parents are invited to attend Alexmuir Junior Public School’s 50th Anniversary Celebration on Saturday, May 24th, 2025.
This is a drop-in event from 10 AM – 2 PM with speeches and singing scheduled from 11 -11:30am. The rest of the time is for you to connect with old classmates and colleagues and to wander and look at photographs and trivia set up by decade in our Decade Rooms, as well as enjoy the Themed Photos Across the Years highlighting events such as going to Kearney, the Terry Fox walk, Concerts and Sports Teams.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Note that this is NOT the long weekend!
Rosewood Reads #4
After a brief break we resumed in January. Our novel of choice was Proof, written by Beverley McLachlin (lawyer and judge). Our story takes us to Shaughnessy, British Columbia where we meet Jilly Truit, lawyer. She has a law firm, beautiful daughter and home. But everything is not idyllic.
Jilly had a rough start in life. Edith, her social worker since a child has been always there for her. Her life was finally coming together until her partner was shot and killed. A year later she was still trying to put the pieces together.
A case comes up that forces Jilly into action. A child has disappeared and the mother has been charged with her disappearance and murder.
Can Jilly unravel the mystery of the disappearance? Can she help the mother? Can she finally put her life together? Time for you to read the book and get the answers to these and many more questions.
Our next read for February will be Trevor Noah: Born a Crime.
Learning to Sow Seeds at the Elementary School
Last week a couple of our gardeners had the honour of sharing what they learned about seed sowing to a group of primary students at the local school.
We arrived early to fill containers with soil and distribute them to different tables. Working in pairs mostly, each group planted a different native, pollinator-friendly plant.
They have been learning about pollinator gardens for a while now, so they were very excited to sow some seeds today. Back in December, the students had collected enough single-use yogurt containers, pop bottles and clear clamshell packaging for today’s activity. We also brought extra seeds for them to attach to a worksheet we had prepared.
We introduced the importance of growing pollinator friendly gardens with a story, which P.L. read to the class.
Scarborough Rosewood Community Association 