DETROIT – Many areas of the city of Detroit have started to see yellow daffodils bloom as part of an effort to help beautify neighborhood parks and boulevards.
City officials are encouraging residents to check them out.
Recommended Videos
Over the past several years, the city’s General Services Department has planted a 1.4 million daffodil bulbs that are now signaling the return of spring in Detroit.
An additional 600,000 bulbs have been planted on Belle Isle by Daffodils4Detroit. This fall, 500,000 bulbs are expected to be planted during a brief, but optimal, 20-day window in October and November.
Planting the daffodils has been a passion project for Barry Burton, project manager of the Detroit Landscape Design Unit, who was inspired by a sea of daffodils he witnessed years ago at the Royal Palace in London.
After unsuccessfully trying to get a daffodil planting program to take root in Chicago, Burton found fertile ground in Detroit, where Mayor Mike Duggan says he wants to shift Detroit from a city of blight to one of beauty.
“Detroit is becoming a more beautiful city by the day, and at no time is it more visible than during these next two weeks in April when our daffodils are in full bloom,” Burton said. “By the end of this year, we will have 2.5 million bulbs in the ground and we’re just getting started. We have the potential to become a major visitor attraction each spring.”
To help residents and visitors find these flowers, the city has created a “Daffodil map” to guide them to the key planting areas, which include city parks across the city and many of its stately boulevards.
“We’ve completely renovated more than 150 parks with beautiful new landscaping and amenities, so this will be a great chance for people to see our progress, as well as the daffodils,” said Brad Dick, group executive of Services & Infrastructure, who oversees many of the city’s beautification efforts. “It’s also a great opportunity to see some of the extraordinary homes in neighborhoods like Boston-Edison and the Aviation Subdivision that have beautiful boulevards with rivers of yellow daffodils”
Here are some of the best areas to view the displays:
- The foot of the Belle Isle Bridge and Gabriel Richard Park
- Arden Park, Boston, Chicago Boulevards and Edison Street in the Boston-Edison neighborhood
- Rosa Parks North of West Grand Boulevard, including Gordon Park at Rosa Parks and Clairmount
- Palmer Greenway (Southbound Woodward Avenue, north of 7 mile north near Palmer Park and the Palmer Woods neighborhood)
- Larned from I-375 to Mt. Elliott, just east of downtown
- Oakman Boulevard in the Aviation Subdivision
- Nardin Park
