Published Aug. 8, 2025

Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud, City of Dearborn staff, and community members celebrated the grand opening of a new pollinator garden, greenspace, and Pockets of Perception (POP) team mural in Dearborn’s Southend at a ribbon-cutting event on Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2025.

The garden blooms in what was once an empty lot near Dearborn’s Dix-Vernor corridor. After purchasing the plot of land, the City of Dearborn initiated plans to construct and design a public garden in the once vacant space. The garden, which is the first of its kind in Dearborn, delivers on Mayor Hammoud’s mission to deindustrialize parts of the city by implementing more greenspaces in industrialized areas. 

Hammoud stated, “We set out to make a garden bloom in what was once an empty lot near one of our most industrialized and polluted corridors. Repurposing this empty lot for a beautiful, scenic butterfly garden will have tangible environmental and public health benefits for the Southend.”

The Southend Butterfly Garden includes features to facilitate and enhance the growth and proliferation of fauna with direct benefits to public health and the environment: 

• Segmented varieties of plants and flowers favorable to butterflies and other pollinators across the entire property.
• Raised planter boxes with bright annuals and salvias, and opportunities for the community to take ownership and alternate planting material every year.
• Pathways, walking pavers, stone edging, and boulders.
• A colorful butterfly-themed mural designed and implemented by the POP team and the Dearborn Community Fund. 

The City consulted Annabella Barry, a Landscape Architecture student from Michigan State University, for her expertise in designing the garden in conjunction with Dearborn’s Department of Public Works and the Parks & Recreation Department. 

The project is made possible with support from ACCESS and Home Depot, as well as a generous donation from community member Judy Patrick and volunteers who dedicated their time planting and maintaining the garden.

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