ECO-CITY VIBES
ECO-CITY VIBES started in 2023 as a collaborative eco-art project between Eastside LEAP fellows Colleen Ludwig and Jordan Irving. We wanted to combine environmental education with eco-art to bring more creativity to urban environmental education and restoration work across Eastside Detroit.
Green Door INITIATIVE, SUMMER YOUTH PROGRAM
We did a pilot project through Green Door Initiative’s summer youth program, teaching students how to forage for materials responsibly, identify plants using a phone app and incorporate these found plants into a personal collage about their feelings toward nature.
Starter ideas / Starter Plants
In 2024, we received a micro-grant to plant new pollinator gardens to augment other Eastside vacant-lot projects. These new community gardens are anchor sites where we will host neighborhood eco-art workshops that teach people about the role of insects and native plants in restoring urban ecosystems. We started early by buying a lot of plants and learned quickly about the challenges of getting so many babies in the ground.
CANFIELD GARDENS of peace and unity, eastside community network
The Canfield Gardens is a long-term project by the Eastside Community Network to incorporate rain-garden swales into the Canfield neighborhood, helping to provide natural rain water drainage, filtration and improved soil health to the neighborhood.
Rainwater at the beginning of the year pooling in the bioswale.
At the end of the year, we had much more biomass living in the bioswale, hopefully growing deeper roots and starting to remediate the soil.
Here is where we finally turned the corner when we got the mowers to stop mowing down the plants in the bioswale.
We experimented with planting new native plants, without tearing up all of the existing groundcover.
In Summer 2024 we worked to improve the drainage of the swales, stop the landscapers from continually cutting back the plants already planted and added more than 100 new plants to the swales. In addition, we began taking soil and water infiltration readings to map our improvement capabilities.
Bill Shuster from Wayne State soil and water engineer taking a soil sample.
The soil sample is very clay-based. Water will not drain well through here.
ROSSITER GREENS, EASTSIDE DETROIT by brandi howard
THE GROW UP INITIATIVE by ken harriston
These raised beds needed to be cleared and started again.
Left to right: Jordan Irving, Ken Harriston and Colleen Ludwig
Here we discovered the Kentucky Coffee Tree, once widespread in the region, now rare.
Seedpods are thick-skinned and dissolve slowly in swamps and wetlands.
Photographs provided by Colleen Ludwig, Brandi Howard, Jordan Irving