Birdhouses, ‘rust garden’ inspire conversation

STERLING HEIGHTS — Whether it’s for the birds, the community or himself, Joe Wagner is all about decorating the spaces around him.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic initially, the Sterling Heights resident, who lives near Clinton River and Canal roads, has been busy building projects outside his home that he hopes will make the area more interesting.

“Me and my son, we were going to go to Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. In three days, our plane was going to take off, and they announced COVID,” Wagner explained.

“That’s where it all started. We’ve just been staying busy throughout COVID, and we just got involved in a lot of community projects.”

One of the most visible projects in Wagner’s neighborhood is the bevy of birdhouses that he made along his street. He said around 30 birdhouses — adorned with American flags — were made for his neighbors to use, and he added that he’d like to make more for other residents on his street.

And then there’s the tree near his home, which he described as a dead maple that is about 45 years old.

“What I like to do is reclaim things,” he said. “I even have a tree out in front of my house. It died, and the city wanted to cut it down.

“I love the tree, and what I (did) with the tree, I built 22 red, white and blue birdhouses. And I got other birdhouses in that tree, and it’s right in the back of the little library.”

That little library is another creation of Wagner’s. It stands along the sidewalk near his home, and passersby may peruse books there. He said he was surprised by the attention the outdoor bookspace gets, adding that it usually gets daily visits.

He added that the project “is not only for my street, but the whole community.”

“You can Google libraries in Sterling Heights, and it’ll come up,” he explained. “It’s all part of that little library society,” he said, referring to the Little Free Library nonprofit.

But Wagner said one of his favorite projects is more personal. Away from the general public’s view is his backyard, which he decorated and turned into a more rustic setting.

Wagner called the setup a “rust garden” and a hidden treasure. The rust garden includes an old, rusty 55-gallon drum that is a “hillbilly smoker,” he said.

“I took it and put it in the middle of my backyard as a conversation piece,” he said. “Anybody that’s got something rusty in your backyard – that starts the conversation.”

Wagner said people bring him old, rusty implements, and he finds creative ways to feature them. For example, an old wheelbarrow comes equipped with a fender because it could protect the tool while hauling cement.

He said visitors to his backyard often want to take a picture of the site.

“I had company over the other day, and they were just kind of picking piece by piece and saying, ‘What’s this?’ ‘What’s that?’ ‘I remember this,’” he said.

Wagner’s sister, Jan Wagner, said she likes the rust garden’s glass art and thinks that the area is cool due to all the “old stuff we grew up knowing.”

“It just brings back a lot of old memories, things we see,” she said. “We grew up on a farm.”

Joe Wagner added that he wasn’t satisfied with his ordinary-looking backyard shed, so he took old fencing and nailed it to the structure. He called the result the “Sugar Shack.”

“I have my backyard all set up like a hillbilly heaven,” he said. “I took a beautiful building and turned it into a shack, and it just evolved from there.”

Wagner described the time some of his projects took.

“The shack has about 3,000 hand mill pieces that I had to hand-mill and attach to the building,” he said.

And when it comes to what the neighbors think, Wagner said they love his creations. He said one compared the rust garden to the random objects hanging on an Irish pub wall, and some neighbors joined him to watch the birds fly in and out of the birdhouses.

Wagner added that his property has been recognized through the city’s Beautification Awards program.

“Me and my neighbors do a real nice job,” he said.

In an email, Gary Isom, the chairman of the Sterling Heights Beautification Commission, said Wagner has received awards from the commission “for many years.”

“He puts in so much time and effort into his property,” Isom said. “He is the perfect example of what we hope that all our residents … encompass. Mr. Wagner makes Sterling Heights a more beautiful place to live, work and play.”