Circle Forest is happening! We are so encouraged by the big hearts and strong hands of the dozens of volunteers who have been getting this project going in these early days. We’ve had folx from Lansing, Ann Arbor, East Side, West Side, and across the street.  A community is forming around this project unlike any we have undertaken. We seem to be speaking the same inspiration and working together to make a special place that speaks to the past and the future. What else could we ask for? 

It’s been hard work and everyone is energized by the huge accomplishments. We filled our first dumpster with garbage excavated from the forest. It really feels like the forest and we can really breathe in there now. We pulled iron bed frames, mattresses, kiddie pools, hoses, hundreds of feet of chain link and barbed wire, vintage styrofoam, carpeting, shingles, tires, and other strange relics of man. 

We’ve created about 50 yards of inviting pathways into and through the woods. We cleared English Ivy from trees and paths and replaced it all with fresh wood chips of all varieties and fragrance. Working in the circle forest is a refreshing olfactory reset. Imagine three hours of just first oxygen and cedar wood chip wafts. 

As we gain access to new sections of the forest we are clearing more garbage and doing an assessment of the canopy and inventorying tree species. We are faced with tough decisions and reckoning about labels such as “invasive” and “native” and what these mean for our project. We have to weigh out a tree's desire to be in this forest, the benefits it has offered long before we got here, and its ability to share and even support native trees. We hesitate to cut most trees in the forest sections of the project, understanding the assistance they will offer the new trees both in stress reduction from shade and existing mycorrhizae community. This means that we want to honor both the trees and fungi that exist here and have made the forest what it is. 

Of course even the “dead” trees are full of life and have a key role here. Even using the word “dead” gives me pause because often trees that are no longer photosynthesizing harbor more life than when they were. We will remove trees that are weak and in danger of falling and leave the snags. These are “dead” wood trees that harbor lots of insects, birds, and even new trees. We believe it is important to keep all the woody debris we find and create on the site. All of this biomass provides moisture retention, habitat, and fertilizer for life. Part of what makes a forest a forest is its ability and desire to subsume itself, to recycle all and bring it back to life.

——— What’s next? ———

Over the coming weeks we will be terraforming. We will take this flat land and help it dance. We will bring undulations to the landscape by forming small hills with valley rings around them. This will allow us to import better soil into the rings into which we will plant the tree groves. Each ring will welcome a different species that will join forces and grow as a family. The mound in the center of each ring will shed water to the trees, giving them a better shot at long term survival amidst these climate challenges.

The last two volunteer workdays for the season are 3pm to 6pm on Sundays October 17th and 31st, with fire and soup at 6pm. If you have a group you would like to bring ( 4 people or more ), please email us and we can arrange a different time that suits your group’s schedule.

And lastly, we are celebrating the closing of this first phase of the project on Halloween, with - guess what - a fire at 6pm after the workday, with food and music. You’re welcome to join us!

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You can donate to this project here, or Venmo @arbdetroit

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           3100 Palmer st. Detroit, MI 48211 ---   www.arbdetroit.org/circle-forest —- treetroit@gmail.com

Where the next two years will take us

We have some great news! The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has awarded us a grant to do our next project. Arboretum Detroit is very excited to announce a native plant restoration project in partnership with Detroit Future City, and NFWF.

This is a preliminary design for the new park on the corner of Palmer and Elmwood.

We will be working with local partners Detroit Audubon, Singing Tree, US Fish and Wildlife, Fungi Freights, and hopefully you, to bring a native meadow and 200 native trees to 1.3 acres of vacant land on Palmer between Elmwood and Moran. This park will connect to several greenspaces in the community and be a green getaway for all neighbors, especially the residents of the adjacent health and rehabilitation center. We hope to have many of our amazing volunteers and supporters be a part of this project over the next 18 months. See below for work days and stay tuned for workshops that you can be a part of.

We will begin by clearing the existing forest of garbage as well as invasive trees and plants. Singing Tree, the local tree whisperers, will assist in identification and removal. It will be sad to cut any trees- even Ailanthus and Siberian Elm are currently providing shade and habitat. However, we will leave plenty of larger trees, and plant trees like Oaks, Sweet Gums, Black Gums, Hackberries, Sugar Maples, Cedars and many other natives that will provide food and shelter better suited to the native animal population. The park will be a native tree showcase, with 20 different species. Fungi Freights will run mushroom-related workshops on site and introduce mycorrhiza with the newly planted trees so they can quickly establish their symbiotic networks and thrive. Detroit Audubon will help prepare the ground and seed it with a Native Wildflower mix donated by US Fish and Wildlife  Service. A beautiful meadow (see Callahan Bird Park) under and around the trees will provide shelter and food source for native and migrating birds. Detroit Audubon will also offer birding workshops.

This is a federal grant that requires significant in-kind donations and volunteer engagement. Our partners have offered generous discounts on their services, donating time and resources to make this project happen - we are extremely grateful to them. If you would like to contribute as well, here’s how: 

• Come to workdays - put your hands to work with us. We are looking to fulfill our requirement of 150 volunteer hours. There will be fun, food, and refreshments. You can see the dates and times here and sign up to receive email reminders.

• Spread the word - tell friends you think might have time and energy to create a native forest park in the city.

• Donate to us- with your financial support we can hire more people and pay them fairly. contributions also buy tools, supplies for our workdays, and help maintain our parks.

• Let us know- please offer your wisdom to this project. Let us know what a native landscape means to you.

• Connect us to Indigenous friends who may have an interest in helping guide such a project. We value all of your knowledge and are especially interested in indigenous perspectives and wisdom on these plants and this land.

Land Acknowledgement in progress: We acknowledge that Arboretum Detroit and the Poletown neighborhood have the privilege of existing and planting on unceded land originally stewarded by Niswi Ishkodewan Anishinaabeg: The Three Fires People who are Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi along with their neighbors the Seneca, Delaware, Shawnee and Wyandot nations. We wish to aid in reconnecting, Waawiiyaataanong, to its rightful heirs and stewards: the native peoples and plants of this place. We acknowledge and understand that these plants and people have existed and gathered on this land for much longer than the plants, peoples, and systems that now obscure it.

This project aims to begin the healing of the traumatized landscape. In turn we hope that the project will bring healing to all who participate. We recognize that this is unceded territory of the first nations who thrived here and are the original stewards of this land. Waawiyaatanong (aka Detroit) has been a central meeting place for Great Lakes Indigenous peoples including the Anishinaabe: Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi. Of course settler colonization meant the destruction of the native landscape, people, and ways of life here. Colonization has meant clear cutting, bulldozing, pouring of concrete, and the gridding of the landscape into city blocks.

With this project we consider deeply what it means to heal a small piece of land by returning many of the native trees and plants that were almost eradicated from this mowed and paved world. Let us hear and learn the original names and uses of these plants from those who know. Let us hone our intercultural competency and recognize the value of Indigenous Knowledge. Let us contribute our work as an offering to the Earth, and a declaration to the First Nations that we recognize indigenous wisdom and are willing to listen to the original stewards of this land and to the landscape herself.

How awesome it will feel to relieve a piece of this land of garbage and trauma. How amazing it will feel to seed the landscape with life and watch it grow into a meadow and a forest. We cannot erase the trauma and abuse of this land and her people, but we can make a better way forward for the Earth, our future with her, and with the original people of this land.

The greatest technology we have to fight the climate emergency caused by the western way of life is indigenous wisdom. It is my hope that people who work on and visit this park will consider this truth and reckon with it in ourselves.

This Report tells you at a glance what we were up to in our first two years: between February 2019 and February 2021. You can also find it on the website under the About tab. Thank you for being a part of it all!