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PLEASE NOTE: In the autumn of 1995, we hatched the idea for a free, local gardening publication. The following spring, we published the first issue of Michigan Gardener magazine. Advertisers, readers, and distribution sites embraced our vision. Thus began an exciting journey of helping our local gardening community grow and prosper.
After 27 years, nearly 200 issues published, and millions of copies printed, we have decided it is time to end the publication of our Print Magazine and E-Newsletter.

Grand Rapids bets big on Food

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New York Times:

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The idea of building a year-round public market to tie the city’s skilled chefs to the region’s big complement of young farmers had already attained an air of inevitability by the time this Midwestern city held its first Restaurant Week three summers ago.

Next year, just in time for the fourth annual Restaurant Week, Grand Rapids is scheduled to open the $30 million, 130,000-square-foot Downtown Market, a destination that is expected to attract 500,000 visitors a year. The three-story brick and glass building, under construction in a neighborhood of vacant turn-of-the-20th century warehouses, is intended by its developers to be a state-of-the art center of commerce for the culinary arts and fresh local foods.

Read the full story…

Website Extra: More plants from Janet Macunovich’s wish list

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This website extra complements Janet’s article entitled, “Remarkable, unusual plants on my wish list,” from the Nov/Dec 2012 issue. Check out the digital edition here.

Classic combination for form and sequence of bloom

Four plants on my list mesh without any special arranging, because one is large, coarse textured and mounded; another is a medium height, fine mound; a third is tall, columnar, coarse and gray; and the fourth has a horizontally spreading shape, medium height and texture, and gray-green foliage. All are long-blooming at varied times of the year or offer multiple seasons of interest. So even when none of the four are blooming, there will be visual interest in the garden because the shapes, textures, and foliage colors contrast.

Plus-season peonies
Few plants take charge in a garden like peonies do. Although the bloom season may be short, if the peony is one that can resist its species’ leaf diseases, then its neat form and substantial foliage serve all the other plants all summer. If it’s a peony that can develop nice fall color at least some years, that makes for a grand finale.

For years I’ve been watching peonies looking for that great bloom, good health, and at least a fair record of significant fall color, all in the same plant. Many of the tree peonies and intersectional hybrids (such as the ‘Itoh’ types) can qualify, including the ‘Bartzella’ yellow-blooming intersectional I already have. When it comes to more traditional peonies, there are just two on my list. One is the rather late-blooming, single white-flowered ‘Krinkled White,’ that can be a showy yellow in autumn. The other is a very early double pink, ‘Estafette.’ This heirloom plant can develop a good burgundy tone in fall.

‘Krinkled White’ will probably have to go to bat this time, because a retail source for the pink continues to elude me. I’ll have to beg a piece from one of the gardeners who tend the plants I watch.

‘Bartzella’ intersectional peony

 

Ornamental mullein (Verbascum hybrids)
Gray-green foliage can add to a garden if you design for it, and spike-like flowers contribute in form well before bloom time until cut back. Ornamental mulleins offer both for sunny dry places, but have been underused. That’s a shame that plant breeders seem ready to correct, with varieties such as ‘Clementine,’ quite foxglove-like at 48-inches but like no other spike for its apricot flowers. Also on our list with good if not stellar ratings is the 12-inch dwarf hybrid ‘Blue Pixie.’ This last is actually purple (don’t we hate it when breeders pick such names?!) and it blooms its heart out and seems to pay for it in shortened life.

Sea lavender (Limonium latifolium)
Its foliage is large, entirely basal, but completely hidden from bloom season until fall cut back time by the flowering stems which create a dense, fine dome. A relative of statice, in bloom it has been described as “like a lilac-pink baby’s breath.” It’s not new to me but has been news to most garden centers and growers I’ve contacted. Finally this year, Specialty Growers in Howell, Michigan decided to grow it. Give it a try. Pair it with Liatris spicata to create synchronized bloom of two different shapes and textures.

Sea lavender

 

Dwarf butterfly bushes (Buddleia davidii hybrids and selections)
We’ve grown the ‘Nanho’ dwarf butterfly bush for some time and been glad for its better fit with moderate and small perennials. Now we have choices in even smaller butterfly bushes, such as the Lo and Behold series in blue-violet, lilac, white and purple, and the Flutterby Petite series that includes the best blue we’ve seen in ‘Blue Heaven.’ We’ll include one of these even though we’re only two years into watching them, because they’re worth the cost even as an annual addition for the flowers it produces and the butterflies and hummingbirds it brings.

Lo and Behold ‘Purple Haze’ butterfly bush

Wanted: A good-sized sunny space for “new” natives

“New” and “Native” may seem contradictory, but what’s been around since before civilization can still be new when it’s first brought into garden cultivation, and again when a plantsperson hybridizes or selects for special characteristics among seedlings. It’s very good to see a lot of that going on recently. For too long before this, natives were overlooked and left standing in the field with names that draw snickers: ____weed, beardtongue, papoose root.

All in this group should have full sun (6-plus hours of cast-a-shadow-light each day) and very well-drained soil, plus enough water to keep it from ever drying down all the way.

This group doesn’t include all the native species on my current wish list. In other groups are Coreopsis, Gaillardia, Gaura, Heuchera, marsh mallow Hibiscus, and mountain mint, which all hail from North America, and all except Heuchera and Gaura occur naturally in Michigan.

Selections and hybrids from false indigo (Twilite Prairieblues baptisia)
False indigo is a big plant, five feet tall and wide. Most gardens have room for only one. So some garden I work in that doesn’t yet feature baptisia will have it soon because this bicolor-flowered hybrid deserves attention. The plant itself is a good anchor for any combination, with clean blue-green foliage and sturdy stems. The bloom is icing on the cake, as each blossom on the tall spike is blue-violet with a yellow streak.

Plenty of other false indigo hybrids are breaking on the garden scene. If purple and yellow aren’t right for your color scheme, check the creams, yellows, and blue-plus-white varieties that preceded Twilight Prairieblues.

Twilite Prairieblues baptisia (www.perennialresource.com)

‘Crimson Butterflies’ gaura (G. lindheimeri ‘Crimson Butterflies’)
Gaura’s floppiness always put me off, even more than its tendency to come and go in northern hardiness zones. (Who can blame a Texas native for preferring the South?) Then I saw ‘Crimson Butterflies,’ just 18 inches at the tips of its dark pink flower stems. The maroon foliage is gorgeous. It’s a good front-edge, fine texture, and long-bloomer.

'Crimson Butterflies' gaura

Culver’s root (Veronicastrum species including V. sibiricum ‘Red Arrows’)

Veronicastrum virginicum is a Michigan native with neatly whorled foliage and thin white candelabras held at eye level in July. It’s a welcome fresh face with clean lines as a perennial garden is making its annual transition to more-things-done-than-still-to-come. Once in a while you see a bit of pink in the flower of this or that veronicastrum seedling, so it’s not surprising that someone found a dark-leaved, pink-blooming type in the Asian counterpart, Veronicastrum sibiricum, and propagated it as ‘Red Arrows.’

Showy goldenrod (Solidago speciosa)
This five-foot plant is native just about everywhere east of the Rockies. It’s showy in golden bloom in August and continues to glow into October as yellow seedheads. Its dense flower head attracts me as a welcome switch from all the feathery explosion-type goldenrods that have already stepped from wildflower to mainstream ornamental perennial. This is a plant that spreads by rhizomes (root-like underground stems), but its vigor, speed and controllability track more closely with black-eyed Susan and daisy than the “weed” goldenrods.

‘Iron Butterfly’ threadleaf ironweed (Vernonia lettermanii ‘Iron Butterfly’)
The trouble with many sunny Midwest native plantings is that so few of the plants are short, or even mid-sized. Most vernonia species (I say we ditch the name ironweed) are so tall that gardeners seeing one for the first time will find bloom time, color and height equally remarkable, as in, “What is that very tall plant with dark purple flowers in August?”

However, the selection of threadleaf vernonia called ‘Iron Butterfly’ is only about three feet tall at maturity. Long-lived like peonies, these plants take some time to bulk up below ground before they hit their full height. Those pictured here are in their first year and still under 18 inches as they begin bloom in late September, offering nectar for the last flight of Monarchs. As the plants age we’ll probably pinch them once or twice in late spring and early summer, or forgo rabbit protection until Independence Day, so they’ll bloom short and late. This species may be at the edge of its hardiness in USDA zone 6; the jury’s still out.

 

Update: Michigan apple harvest

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NPR:

An apple a day might keep the doctor away, but what do you do when there are no apples? It’s a question western Michigan’s apple growers are dealing with this season after strange weather earlier in the year decimated the state’s apple cultivation.

Michigan is the third-largest apple producer in the U.S. after New York and Washington, but the state’s apples will soon be in short supply. Now in the middle of harvest season, growers are picking only 10 percent to 15 percent of their normal crop.

Read the full story here…

Website Extra: Planting on a hill

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To read the full Janet’s Journal, “Anti-gravity gardening: Planting on a hill,” pick up a copy of Michigan Gardener (in stores by Sept 5) or check out page 32 in our e-edition of the September/October Issue.

Stones meant to slow water’s fall, reinforce or retain a hill
should not sit on the surface where they can slip.

ledge-cut-into-hill

stone-placed-on-first-ledge

second-ledge-prepared

second-stone-placed

In the series above, a stone placed on a step cut to lean back into the hill. The next stone also leans back, and its face is set back away from vertical. Given stones stacked across the face of the hill, this setback would create a “battered” retaining wall. A batter of 1” back for each 12” rise stabilizes a retaining wall.

edinburgh-rock-garden

At the Royal Botanical Garden in Edinburgh, Scotland, this 1.75:1 slope (57 percent) features artistically placed boulders but the main retainers are plants.

san-bernadino-slope

Those of us who garden on relatively flat lands may gape at how slopes are handled in hillier regions. Once you know something about terracing, you may focus as much on the ways this feat is accomplished as on the unusual plants you see in faraway places. Residents’ attitudes toward hills and their skill in dealing with them can be worth note, too. That is, the residents of up-and-down neighborhoods in the foothills of California’s San Bernardino Mountains regularly stabilize long, steep hills solely with plants such as these rambler roses and honeysuckle vines.

Drawing wildlife into your garden

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Here are some approaches and plants to think about
if you’d like to inject more life into your garden.

by Janet Macunovich / photos by Steven Nikkila

bird-sipping-water
For most wildlife, no meal is complete without a sip of water. Water may be the biggest draw to wildlife you can add to a landscape.

Bluebirds prefer insects and fruit to seed. They’re choosy about bugs, too. Their preferred insect prey are beetles, weevils, grasshoppers, crickets and caterpillars. (From the excellent, but out-of-print book American Wildlife & Plants: A guide to wildlife food habits by Alexander C. Martin, Herbert S. Zim and Arnold L. Nelson.)

“Whose garden is it?” asks the children’s book by that name. Everyone and everything, from the gardener to the rain and the resident rabbit, replies, “It’s mine!”

How true, that so many have claims on a garden. In the case of my own garden and some I tend, the gardener doesn’t even list his or her own claim first, but would answer that question, “It’s theirs and I’m glad. I wished for and worked to attract the birds, the rabbits, the groundhog, the fox, the butterflies and all the rest. With every change, I think about them and how to keep them.”

Basic recipe: Food, water, shelter

Life requires all three. If you spring for one—food, for instance—you might nab some visitors if the creatures you’re luring are already nearby because your yard or another property in your vicinity is providing them water and shelter. On the other hand, hang out a hummingbird feeder in a large new development devoid of big trees and though that lure sparkles red in the sun and you change it religiously to keep the syrup from spoiling, you may never see a hummer. The habitat a ruby-throated hummingbird looks for is wooded and though it may fly a mile to feed it wants to nest where it’s woodsy.

So make a list of the wildlife you’d like to see, learn the particulars of their basic recipe, check what’s on hand and what’s missing in your neighborhood that they need, and add what it takes. Go wild!

Natural foodstuffs and supplements

Food is probably the easiest prescription to fill. Scatter some seed on the ground and you’re likely to get a few sparrows, whose presence may cue birds of other types to come see “what’s up.”

That offering is supplemental food. Make sure your yard also offers natural food if you want the most diversity, all year, without having to break the bank to keep all those hungry beaks and bellies filled. What Nature provides often can’t be duplicated at a feeder: A well-rounded, nutritionally balanced diet.

When you look around your neighborhood to see what it has to offer the wildlife on your invitation list, look for plants that produce seeds and berries. Notice or look up what time of year each crop becomes available.

If you find that every berry bush and seed plant around ripens in late spring or early fall, you might be able to fill the summer and winter gaps with dogwoods for late summer berries, members of the sunflower family that offer up seed at the end of July, or viburnum and hawthorn that carry fruit into winter. You might boost your whole neighborhood’s rating to that of a five-star wildlife resort and at the same time become the best seat in the house because the table will be loaded only in your yard at certain times.

One critical menu item you might overlook is bugs. On the wing, in the ground, as eggs and larvae, they’re lunch to almost everything bigger. Insects are probably even more important to birds than berries and seeds, because they’re a better source of protein. Even birds that eat more fruit than anything else at most times of year will switch to bug collection when they’re raising young. It’s just plain better fuel for getting a nestling up to speed and out on is own.

As you assess your surroundings for wildlife potential, keep an eye open for pesticide use that you might be able to influence, and think hard about your own use of insecticides. This isn’t to say that some bug-killing isn’t warranted, only that the see-bug-kill-bug approach is one that has to be moderated if you’d like to enjoy the company of organisms that are higher on the food chain.

As well as protecting bugs so they’ll be there on the menu for other animals, many people cater to certain insects on a par with songbirds. They do, and you can, provide the plants that caterpillars eat, introduce and nurture fascinating predators such as preying mantises and lightning bugs, and design the landscape so it offers one after another of the flowers that serve nectar-sipping bees and butterflies.

toads-in-backyard-pond
So many toads come to the pond in my backyard (these are Bufo americanus americanus, the eastern American toad) that the springtime chorus is loud enough to have caused comment from neighbors who were, thankfully, amused to learn the source.

We may not all have the waterside property that would appeal to an osprey, but we can provide nesting materials for the birds that do take up residence. So don’t pick up all those twigs that fall. They may end up in a hawk’s nest. Birds are great improvisers—note the yellow tape incorporated in this osprey’s nest—so do consider scattering atop an evergreen shrub the fur you brush from your dog, leftover yarn and bits of fabric for the birds.

Water: Clean and safe

Bees and butterflies may be able to live for days on nectar alone but for most wildlife no meal is complete without a sip of water. Wild animals know where to find it in natural bodies of water, puddles, and tree cavities and crotches that collect rainwater. To tiny critters such as butterflies and hummingbirds, even a dewy leaf is a beverage bar.

Yet drought happens. Then, the water we spill into a birdbath, the sprinkler we leave running and a garden pond or fountain can be lifesavers. Looking for entertainment on a dry summer day? Set up a sprinkler so that it hits shrubbery as well as a lawn or garden, and watch the birds check in to perches high and low for a drink and a wash. Position your chair so you can see both the spot being watered and any place downhill where runoff accumulates, since some species prefer to shower, others to bathe.

Running and dripping water is such a lure that even a simple leaky bucket can call birds from a quarter mile. Try it. Put a very small hole in an expendable bucket and perch it on a bench or table so it drips onto a flat stone. Or leave a hose barely dripping over that same rock. Some member of your wild community will find it, others will notice, and soon a line will form!

You may not realize how important your garden pond is until you make a point of watching it all day or through the night. Toads gather there to mate, frogs take up residence, dragonflies drop their eggs in, and squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, and even deer stop in to sip.

What we saw in our own ponds over the years prompted us to design the one we have now with creature comfort in mind. We made it deep enough that at least some fish would always escape a heron’s fishing spree. We put a layer of sand at its bottom so frogs could dig in and remain at the bottom through winter. At one edge we created a beach—a sloping exit point where birds, snakes or shrews that fall in might be able to climb back out. Within the lined excavation we included a bog, where a depression in the sand can be a butterfly puddling point. We do minimal cleanup in spring to preserve the dragonflies that spend winter there as mosquito-eating larvae.

Whether you set out a simple water bowl for the ducks who forage at the foot of your feeder, fill an old dishpan with sand plus just enough water to form a shallow puddle on top for the butterflies, or go whole hog on a birdbath with fountain, keep two words in mind: clean and safe. Change the water often so mosquitoes can’t breed there, and keep it shallow so the smallest of your visitors can wade without drowning.

Shelter is for travel and storm as well as raising a family

Birdhouses and nesting boxes are the first things most people list when asked what “shelter” means in relation to wildlife. Others include the dog hair, yarn and other building materials they set out to be taken by nest builders. Some recognize that they’re providing shelter when they ignore standard pruning practice to leave cluttered crotches and decayed “snags” on trees to serve as nest bases and natural nesting cavities. All of these places and things associated with raising young are shelter but still only one part of a bigger picture.

heron-on-a-log
We’ve enjoyed every bit of wildlife drama that’s taken place in our garden but we did intervene after seeing what effective fishers the herons are. We don’t exclude the heron—after all, our fish do multiply and could become overcrowded—but we did make the pond deeper in spots than a wading bird can navigate and added rocks that form underwater caves where fish can hide.

Safe passage is part of shelter. It encompasses hedge rows that are travel lanes for critters which might otherwise draw the attention of a hawk or owl. Brush piles fall into this category since they can admit wee beasties while keeping out the larger animals that hunt them. Clumps of herbaceous perennial stems left standing over winter count, too, as they may harbor developing caterpillars and ladybugs, or screen the entrance to anything from a chipmunk hole to a fox’s den.

Warming stations are shelter, too. The southeast face of a hedge is the warm spot many creatures seek after a cold night. Even better are shrubs along the east or south side of a building, where the sun warms one side of the plants while the other holds heat that escapes from windows and chinks in the wall. Likewise, the sunny side of a rock pile is a magnet for cold-blooded reptiles. Before you shudder and dismantle your rock wall, consider that it’s also the place where cold-blooded butterflies and dragonflies can warm themselves.

Shelter is also the proverbial port in a storm. When the weather turns ugly, thickets, evergreen trees and dense shrubs can quickly become as crowded as a park pavilion when thunder and lightning interrupt a 4th of July celebration. Trees on the lee side of a slope might serve as a roost for hundreds of birds when strong winds blow during migration time. Even the sheltered side of an ornamental grass becomes a busy spot when winter winds blow.

Can we invite one wild species and bar others? We can try. But take away warming stations such as south-facing rock ledges because they attract reptiles, and that might discourage dragonflies that also like to sun themselves there. Personally, I’m pleased to support at least four dragonfly species in my yard, including this common whitetail. They are non-stop eaters of insects on the wing, and as larvae they’re just as deadly to water-dwelling bugs such as mosquito larvae. I don’t want to lose a single dragonfly. Besides, it can be a good thing to have garter snakes around, as they prey on insects and voles too large to be eaten by dragonflies.

So set your stage to both invite wildlife and allow you to watch from a prime seat. Pick plants to feed and house those birds, bats, bufos, bugs or bunnies. Cluster them to block the wind and slow a predator. Place the densest groups to the north and west of where you sit so you’ll have a clear view of the troupe that assembles there.

Then, make yourself comfortable and keep binoculars close by. A constantly changing cast of characters will pass though that space, improvising as they do. They may put wear and tear on the set you built, but rein in your urge to tidy it too much. Add more of what you see most used. Intervene if you must but allow some rowdiness because sometimes that’s what brings out the most impressive performances. While other people are filling their photo albums with beautiful still lifes, you’ll be weaving the wild into your life.

Plant early-, mid-season and late-ripening species. Put them where they’ll prosper. Don’t deadhead. Add more of whatever appeals most to “your” birds.

Seeds for the birds

goldfinch-on-a-sunflower
One sunflower plant can keep this goldfinch coming back day after day from early August into November. What’s tough for gardeners is to let the plant go to seed—the urge is to clip off spent flowers to keep it neat. But birds like things messy!

Seed that ripens in early summer:
• Pot marigold (Calendula)
• Tickseed (Coreopsis)

Seed that ripens mid- to late summer:
• Bachelor button
• Bellflower (Campanula)
• Bull thistle
• Chicory
• Cosmos
• Love-lies-bleeding (Amaranthus)
• Marigold
• Portulaca

Seed that ripens in fall and remains available into winter:
• Aster
• Coneflower
• Fountain grass
• Phlox
• Sunflower (annual and perennial species)
• Switchgrass

 

When seed has no draw for a songbird

butterfly-on-butterfly-bush
We watched this monarch butterfly successfully defend its butterfly bush against a hummingbird. The butterfly flew at the hummingbird each time it approached, fending it off until the hummingbird simply perched and stared as the butterfly sipped nectar.

When it’s hungry, almost any bird will eat an oil-rich seed such as thistle or sunflower. However, some, such as mourning doves, cardinals, sparrows, house finches and goldfinches, prefer seed and eat more of it than anything else.

Other birds, including orioles, cedar waxwings, robins, thrashers and woodpeckers, are not seen so often at feeders because their diets consist primarily of fruit or insects. To attract fruit and insect eaters, put out fruit and suet cakes.

Both hummingbirds and butterflies sip nectar and may vie for any of the flowers on this list, but most butterflies must perch to feed while hummingbirds can hover.

Nectar drinkers need masses of flowers. A hummingbird may visit 1,000 blooms per day to obtain enough nectar—typically, 1/2 its own body weight in nectar, plus insects and water. So to do the best for hummingbirds and butterflies, stick with what grows well in your garden, and grow a lot of it.

Hummingbirds
Ajuga
Azalea/rhododendron
Bleeding heart
Canna
Catmint
Columbine
Coral bells
Dahlia
Daylily
Delphinium
Four o’clock
Foxglove
Fuchsia
Geranium
Gladiola
Hibiscus
Honeysuckle
Impatiens
Iris
Larkspur
Cleome
Lobelia
Morning glory
Nicotiana
Petunia
Quince
Rose of Sharon
Salvia
Snapdragon
Trumpet vine
Virginia bluebells
Weigela
Wisteria
Zinnia

Butterflies
Rock cress/Arabis
Aster
Bull thistle
Candytuft
Celosia
Coneflowers
Gaillardia
Joe pye weed
Lavender
Milkweeds/Asclepias
Pincushion flower
Plumbago
Sedum
Verbena

Both
Beauty bush
Bee balm/Monarda
Butterfly bush
Dianthus
Elderberry
Lantana
Lilac
Phlox

Bug patrol!

black-capped-chickadee-creeping
This bird we think of as a cheery, friendly creature is death on bugs. When you see a black-capped chickadee creeping along a tree trunk or limb of a shrub, you can be sure it’s plucking out insects that hoped to spend winter in the bark crevices.

The black-capped chickadee we love as a cheery presence at the thistle seed feeder actually prefers to eat insects. Even when provided with plentiful seed, it forages in the garden where it eats large numbers of bugs and their eggs. It eats eggs of moths, aphids, katydids and spiders in winter. During the growing season it’s a very good hunter of moths, caterpillars, spiders, weevils, beetles, flies, wasps, bugs, aphids, leafhoppers and treehoppers.

About those buzzy little wrens who scold at you when you garden too close to their home: Give way! On average, a pair of wrens delivers 500 insects per day to their brood.

Janet Macunovich is a professional gardener and author of the books “Designing Your Gardens and Landscape” and “Caring for Perennials.” Read more from Janet on her website www.gardenatoz.com.


Fighting the drought with organic lawn dye

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It’s amazing what some will do just to keep a lawn green…

Associated Press via NPR:

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — When this summer’s drought turned her prized lawn brown, Terri LoPrimo fought back, but not with sprinklers: She had it painted green, making her suddenly lush-appearing yard the envy of her neighborhood.

The Staten Island, N.Y., resident and her husband, Ronnie, hired a local entrepreneur to spruce up their yard by spraying it with a deep-green organic lawn dye. By Monday, the couple’s property was aglow with newly green blades of grass and no watering needed to sustain it.

“It looks just like a spring lawn, the way it looks after a rain. It’s really gorgeous,” said LoPrimo, a 62-year-old retiree.

Read the rest of the story…

The story behind tasteless tomatoes

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So, why do store-bought tomatoes lack the taste that many of us remember as kids? Blame aesthetics according to a recent report in Science Magazine:

The next time you bite into a supermarket tomato and are less than impressed with the taste, blame aesthetics. A new study reveals that decades of breeding the fruits for uniform color have robbed them of a gene that boosts their sugar content.

The finding is “a massive advance in our understanding of tomato fruit development and ripening,” says Alisdair Fernie, who studies the chemical composition of tomatoes at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam, Germany.

Read the full story here…

In Memoriam: Bill Saxton 1926-2012

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William Saxton, the second generation owner of Saxton’s Garden Center in Plymouth, passed away on June 4, 2012 at the age of 86.

Born in Hazel Park, Michigan on March 14, 1926 to Dean and Margaret Saxton, Bill graduated from Plymouth High School, where he met his future wife Valerie, in 1944. He served honorably in the U.S. Navy during World War II and went on to study business management and engineering at the University of Michigan, graduating in the late 1940’s. Bill and Valerie married in the summer of 1947.

Taking the reins from his father, Bill became the owner and operator of Saxton’s Garden Center, an 83-year-old family business in Plymouth, Michigan. A cornerstone of Plymouth’s downtown, the former Saxton’s Feed Company once served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Under Bill’s leadership, Saxton’s Feed Company transitioned from farm-supply and livestock feed to Saxton’s Garden Center as farms gave way to suburbs.

Bill is survived by his wife of nearly 65 years, Valerie and his children Alan, Craig and Christopher. Saxton will be remembered as a dedicated husband, father, grandfather, veteran, businessman, philanthropist, community leader and friend. Alan Saxton, third generation owner, operates Saxton’s Garden Center today.

Website Extra: The Garden is a Classroom

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To read the full story on Atwood Elementary, pick up a copy of Michigan Gardener (in stores now) or check out page 28 in our e-edition of the July Issue.

Some examples in the ABC garden at Atwood Elementary: A (aster), B (black-eyed Susan), C (cardinal flower), D (daisy), E (eggplant), H (hollyhock), and J (Jacob’s ladder).

 

”We have several chalkboard notes near the ABC plants to invite children, parents, teachers and visitors to a new plant or a new fact about a plant,” said garden coordinator Sandy Paratore.

 

The “A”maze garden has two entrances and lots of plants in the small maze.

 All photos by Sandie Parrott

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