Long Road to a (Legal) Tree Nursery

So, it seems that having a tree nursery in the city of Detroit is actually illegal. I had no idea that I have been guilty of criminal tree stewardship for about 30 years. Maybe you have too. A tree nursery becomes illegal when you have 9 or more trees growing on your property with the intention of planting them somewhere off your property. I always have dozens of trees growing in pots and little nurseries in my yard. It seems not only logical, but actually environmentally responsible, to take care of the seedlings I find coming up from the mature trees around me. This is one of the motivations for starting a formal tree nursery for our community. Not everyone has the space or the experience to be able to take a tree from an inch tall sprout, to a three-foot whip, to a one inch caliper tree. But we do all have access to these sprouts if we just notice and can identify them as they germinate in our lawns and gardens. Our nursery will be a place for neighbors to bring these little sprouts and saplings to ensure that they are cared for and can become the trees they are destined to be. Most naturally germinating trees in urban and suburban settings are mowed down again and again until they give up and expire. This happens to billions of trees each year. Imagine if we all let these trees grow where they sprout, or placed them in community nurseries. If our project works like I believe it will it could be replicated and become a fixture of the communities of the future, especially here in Detroit, where we have the space to incorporate one on every block.

So, how does one make a legal nursery? Well, it has been a long road with lots of meetings and paperwork, and we are not quite there yet. We need a “Special Land Use” because we are in residential zone and the nursery will constitute an “urban farm.” We are in the process of combining parcels so that the work we do for our “Special Land Use” can apply to a total of six lots. The nursery we are building this fall will be on only three of those lots, but we want the ruling on our special land use to apply to six so that we can expand in the future without having to undertake again this whole process and expense.

We are very close to becoming this required urban farm. After getting to know BSEED- Building, Safety, Engineering, and Environmental Department- very well, along with their ePLAN, eLaps, and ProjectDox, we are at the very last stage. We are scheduled for a “Special Land Use” hearing on August 7th. This is so that anyone within 300 feet of the nursery who has questions, concerns, or objections, can come and be heard. We hope this goes well, and if it does we will break ground on our Arboretum Detroit Tree Bank. The design of the nursery is included here to demonstrate layout of the nursery.

We want the rows oriented on a true north / south axis to add both aesthetic interest and tangible reminder of cardinal directions. This consciousness is very important when planting gardens, trees, and designing buildings. However, the standard grid of the city does not help us understand where the cardinal directions are. This orientation for the nursery will help us educate about these directions and their implications for those who plant the trees that graduate from the nursery. This will also offer a more natural feng shui for entering the nursery. The nursery opens up to the intersection at an angle much softer than a sharp 90 degrees that the grid layout demands; it’s a psychological break from these confines for us and for the trees. The trees are already salty about having to spend years in straight rows. They teach us with the form of their crowns, branches, and roots that something more organic suits them.

We are keeping a few mature trees in the nursery, because they were here first, and they will offer some relief from the full sun that could be too much stress for the young trees. We will also plant some trees into the nursery permanent as permanent fixtures. These will offer a park-like welcoming to the 15 foot set-back as well as offer some shade. The nursery will include a gazebo-type structure at the entrance for gathering, education, and small events. Here we will do seed and perennial exchanges, education, and have lunch with friends.

The trees shown in the drawing are just a starting point. We may choose more and other varieties based on a community feedback survey. It is fun but complicated choosing a couple hundred trees for a nursery. There are many many considerations and many many opinions. I mean, we all kind of have our favorite trees and would love to see more of these. One wants not to have a personal hierarchy of trees, as all trees do their jobs perfectly. There are questions of native and non-native species. Do we want exclusively native trees? Or do we think that trees from other places can be useful in exhibiting differing forms and habits, and getting people excited about trees? Are there trees that we could use more of, and are there trees that are already overrepresented here in Detroit? All these considerations are valuable, and may have to be the subject of a later post.

For now, stay tuned to the corner of Farnsworth and Elmwood. Watch a nursery grow.