Beautiful gardens abound in Warren

WARREN — The Warren Beautification Commission Residential Awards were given to 20 of the most beautiful gardens, as deemed by the commission, Sept. 18 at The Gazebo Banquet Center, where the gardeners were celebrated for their work.

“Anyone could nominate a beautiful front yard garden in Warren. Once a garden was nominated, members of the commission would go out and take pictures of it,” said Warren City Councilman Dave Dwyer, ex-officio of the Beautification Commission and the city’s mayor pro tem. “Many times along the way, we would see other gardens that were just fantastic and then nominate those. We had about 80-90 nominations, and the judges came up with 20 winners.”

With an array of flowers, plants and trees including begonias, geraniums, calibrachoa, salvia, hibiscus, hyacinth, daffodils, tulips, Brugmansia, and a weeping mulberry tree covering their front yard garden, Greg May and his wife, Shiela Jenkins-May, are delighted to be one of this year’s winners.

“(I) give God his glory for everything that happens to us. All the bees, butterflies, watching all flowers, all the enjoyment we get is truly a blessing from God,” he said.

May described their garden as, “One giant bouquet out there, not a flower here and a flower there, just let it all grow together and be happy.”

Jenkins-May said she has always loved flowers, colors and a beautiful garden, and she attributes her garden to not being afraid to experiment.

“When we did this garden, we didn’t know what was going to grow low or what was going to grow high. We just took a chance, and it just came out right,” she said.

The couple likes to repurpose stepladders, chairs, tables and pots in their garden by painting them and using the accessories to elevate the flowers, showing them off at different levels.

The Mays started gardening together when they married 12 years ago, and they plant several hundred tulips and begonias each year. The couple, who are now in their 70s, have developed gardening strategies that ease the strain on their backs. Rather than digging out a spot for each bulb and placing them in an individual hole, May digs a trench, puts the bulbs in and then covers it with dirt.

This year, their garden attracted bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.  The pollinators made their garden more beautiful, according to May. His wife said, “Hummingbirds love salvia,” which is among the plants in their garden.

“The hummingbirds know my wife. They’ll fly up to her, look at her then they’ll go and eat,” May said.

“The hummingbirds take your breath away, looking at you, and fluttering,” Jenkins-May said.

The twisted bark on their weeping mulberry tree looks like artwork.

“I thought it was nice,” Jenkins-May said when they were notified as winners of the Residential Awards. “I was kind of proud of ourselves.”

Tawnya Howell was one of the two winners selected by the Environmental Advisory Committee for their use of native plants in the garden.

“Native plants grow naturally in Michigan and support the native habitat,” Howell said. “You can’t find native plants in a nursery. Unless they are purposely doing native plants.”

These plants require less maintenance because they are adaptive to the Michigan climate. “You really don’t have to water as much,” Howell said. “Only if there are long periods of no rain.”

Howell has been gardening for about six years and would like to do her entire front yard in native plants. She obtains much of her information about these plants by researching, reading, following and participating in Facebook gardening groups.

Among the plants in her front yard are smooth blue aster, tall goldenrods, showy goldenrods, purple coneflowers, showy coneflowers, beardtongue, ironweed, and liatris spicata. She also has early sunflowers but is not sure if the flower is native to Michigan.

“I really love the liatris and the purple coneflowers,” Howell said.

The flowers typically grow tall and range in color from lavender to deep rich purple.

One of her favorite gardening tips is using fresh early spring and summer wood chips, which she was able to find for free on Facebook marketplace.

“People would get a wood chip drop and give them away because they have too many,” Howell said.

She gets as many wood chips as will fit in her car and puts the chips in her flower bed.

The wood chips go on top of the soil around the plants, like regular mulch.

“The wood chips help keep the ground cooler and help keep the moisture in. It feeds the ground as they break down,” Howell added. “I read a post about getting fresh wood chips every year and when they break down, it creates a really great soil for them to grow in.”

This is the first year she has used wood chips and is pleased with the results.

When Howell heard her garden was a winner, she said, “I was quite happy and excited. I know there’s a lot of other yards that are prettier, but I’ll take it.”

The complete list of the 20 Warren Beautification Commission Residential Awards recipients, according to the commission, is as follows: Parvin Begum, Diane and Jamie Caza, Jeanine Cook, Annette DeCoste and Nolan Hess, Carol Finley, Jane Fischer, Sunday and Robert Ervin, Michelle Katopedes and Wilson Agudo, Randy Kolodziejski, Khrystyna and Oleksandr Konovalov, Elizabeth and Gary Kozyra, Shiela Jenkins-May and Greg May, Renee and Henry Nicholson, Debbie and Mike Roediger, Mary Tackett and Ward Case, Rose and Cory Weiss, and Camilia and Mary Ellen Welling.

The native plant winners were Tawnya Howell, and Sarah and Chris DeMercurio.