by Tom Gibson, photos by Laura Dempsey

GardenWalk Cleveland Heights featured a successful pilot project: 11 36 sq.ft. pollinator pocket gardens on Langton Road.  The gardens combine a steady flow of blooms, low maintenance, (relative!) deer resistance, and attractiveness to pollinating insects.  The goal was to enhance both immediate neighborhood attractiveness and community spirit.

Those goals appear to have been realized. Madeleine Macklin, the Langton resident who helped lead the effort, conducted an informal survey of those homeowners who participated.  She reported: “Many of the people walking in the neighborhood often stop to chat about the beauty of our street. Some just give ‘oohs’ and ‘ahs.’ But I am often told that their stress, depression, anxiety levels have gone down from sharing, and experiencing the beautiful flowering plants on our street.”

The design component of this project: each homeowner had a voice in individual site selection. The challenge was, for the sake of visual unification, to find a not too broad range of mostly native plants that were adaptable to a quite broad range of growing conditions, and were visually showy.  Almost everyone received one or more hibiscus moscheutos, with its spectacular dinner plate style blooms.

The next step will be to raise enough additional funding to extend the pollinator pocket project to other streets in the Noble Neighborhood. Green Paradigm Partners, which conceived and executed the project, is discussing expansion of the project with key scientific partners and foundations.

Photos are courtesy of Laura Dempsey. More of Laura’s work can be found on her website, ldempsey.com. She is open to new clients and opportunities.