Woodward Avenue between McNichols Avenue and 8 Mile Road is set to become a sunnier place this summer thanks to a large sunflower planting planned for the Palmer Park area.
A number of community groups and businesses in Palmer Park, University District and Chaldean Town neighborhoods that surround the northern section of Woodward, led by the
Woodward Avenue Action Association, will be planting 700 sun flowers in medians, in front of businesses and parks on Michigan's Main Street this spring.
"We want to get people talking about the area and get people interested in the area," says Ken Weikal, a landscape architect and vice president of
GrowTown, a Farmington Hills-based business helping lead the project. "There is a lot going on and nobody talks about it."
The sunflowers will at first be grown in greenhouses at
Penrose Village urban gardens near the east side of 7 Mile Road in
Chaldean Town. Once they are sprouted they will be planted along Woodward. Weikel says the community groups choose sunflowers because it is a hearty plant that grew well along Woodward during a few test runs last year.
"Sunflowers are big and showy," Weikal says. "People generally really, really like them."
Source: Ken Weikal, vice president of GrowTown
Writer: Jon Zemke
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