Beautifying Our Strips

By Rebecca Hammond

Beautifying Our Strips

Where I grew up in rural Ohio, we had no sidewalks, hence nothing near the street that needed a name.

Later, I discovered that the Ohio word for the strip between sidewalk and street is “tree lawn.” Ohio always was a bit dull.

In Michigan, however, we're colorful. Descriptive. Our sand doesn't produce good grass, so at some point someone named those spaces “Devil's Strip” or, even meaner, “Hell strip.” But are these spaces really so nefarious? A string of Ferndale business owners thinks otherwise.

ONE OF THE FIRST BUSINESSES TO MOVE TO then-rather-empty Livernois in 2009 was Green Daffodil. Owners Anne Simionetti and Siouxsan Miller knew immediately that they wanted to beautify out front. “We wanted to create curb appeal. So many people walk here. It was ugly and we wanted to make it pretty.” Their roses and irises are joined by herbs in the summer because “it relates to the products in the shop. Lemon verbena and peppermint” are some of the herbs added to their candles and soaps. They were far enough ahead of the status quo to have already received a beautification award from the City a good 15 years ago. The irises you may still get a glimpse of in bloom are from Siouxsan's Pennsylvania family farm. Find shop-made soy candles, soaps, lotions and fun gifts here.

HEAD A BIT NORTH AND YOU COME TO THE CAT CAFE, with a full pollinator garden out front. Put in last year by Eve Sandoval and other volunteers, it made the devil's strip angelic. Eve told me, “Planting native plants allows me to let nature in. Seeing the impact one simple plant or a combination can make on insects is truly fascinating!” Fellow volunteer Kelly Konieczki added, “Native plants are essential for all life. If every business like the Catfe added a native garden, not only would it increase visibility of these plants, it would create a much-needed network of pollinator pathways instead of biodiversity dead-ends.”

Head further south and you'll come to Metropolis Cycles, and their new pollinator garden. Owner Ted Sliwinski told me, “Grass sucks! I'm very passionate about pollinators and going full native.” Ted's and his wife Erin's Detroit home was already that, and was the impetus for their devil's strip metamorphosis. Metropolis Cycles expanded into Ferndale from Detroit a year ago, and the Livernois site was chosen partly because it has bike lanes. Ted said, “I wouldn't have considered it without them.”

He also mentioned Ferndale being a good fit in other ways, with part of #ferndalenormal being the freedom to be grass-free. Metropolis Cycles has a Monday-night women's ride, kids' events, ice cream sandwiches, and and bikes and gear, of course.

ON HILTON, DESSERT OASIS COFFEE ROASTERS HAS A POLLINATOR GARDEN next to their building. Nathan Hamood, President, told me about getting started. “It was a combination of some folks in our circle that inspired us, our friends at Rochester Pollinators, as well as our Director of Finance, Christian Kettenbell, who had some experience creating a pollinator garden at his own home years ago. It seemed so wasteful to just hire a landscaping company to come and drop in a bunch of non-native plants. This seemed to contribute more to the neighborhood than some cookie-cutter shrubs.

I'm a Ferndale resident as well and have seen them in many of my neighbor's yards over the years and have always admired them. Michiganense Natives (a plant nursery) helped us design and plant it, with over 200 native plants!” Dessert Oasis was founded in 2009. It serves coffees “from small, quality-driven farms to pair with our desserts for our guests.”

A last thought from Eve: “I helped Ferndale Cat Shelter plant a native garden in May 2023 in hopes of inspiring other Ferndale businesses to do the same.” I hope the trend grows, too.

Rebecca Hammond is the founder of the Michigan Monarch Project/Ferndale, and happily used Ferndale's bike lanes to visit these businesses and see their gardens.