When Offered Essence of Detroit Honey, Don't Stall. Buy now!
A Rain Garden in Yorkshire Woods Feeds Detroit’s Honeybees with the Hustle
Saturday, November 5th, 2022 at 12:04 PM
Prowash Coin Laundry
Corner of Kelly and Morang
Detroit Michigan
I visited the Pointe Plaza, a mall perched on the corner of Mack and Moross. Built into the rambling buildings of Ascension Saint John's Hospital, the mall contains a gym, a Buddy's Pizza, a pharmacy and even a health food supermarket. Popped up in the gym lobby under a lawn tent, I found J.W. Kinsey, beekeeper. The beekeeper and a friend were selling Mason jars of honey from local hives. Branded "Essence of Detroit", the jars promised organic wildflowers honey.
I was traveling light. I didn't pick up a jar, but I picked up the beekeeper's card. I also bought a pound jar of honey from Trader Joe's last Saturday. I think the label promised organic wildflower honey from Uruguay. My honey is better traveled than I am. Essence of Detroit honey might be better for me, protecting me from local allergies.
The card mentioned Outhwaite Homes Gardens, which sounded like an urban garden to me. One I had never heard of before Friday. So I looked it up. And I discovered it's a registered rain garden, funded in part by the Erb Foundation. Detroitstormwater.com keeps track of rain gardens. The foundation funds gardens and swales through its Rain Gardens to the Rescue Program.
Tucked into a backyard of a home near Yorkshire Woods, the garden's one hundred and fifty square feet of vegetation, mostly flowers, manages ten thousand gallons of rainwater annually. The beekeeper worked together with a designer from the Friends of the Rouge to design the garden. It's an example of green stormwater infrastructure that does double duty as a beeyard and a pollinator garden. Costing eight hundred dollars to build, our beekeeper spends fifty dollars a year to maintain the rain garden.
Outhwaithe is a name the beekeeper brought to Detroit from Cleveland. At the Outhwaithe Homes in Cleveland, the beekeeper learned a love of gardening, flowers and more. The beekeeper brought this love of flowers and gardening to Detroit. All of these facts I gleaned from the article at Detroitstormwater.com.
Happily I noted that the rain garden and bee yard lies less than one mile walk from my place in Yorkshire Woods. The garden and home awaits south of a major street one residential street east of mine. The bees from the beekeeper's hives might visit the unkempt flower bed in my back yard. The bees might visit the marigolds of the Metropolitan Community Tabernacle that I love, still in bloom. I rung up the number, hoping to schedule a visit and buy a pound of honey.
When the line picked up, I heard a busy signal. Then the call hung up. I texted, but I haven't heard back.
Is this Detroit's most mysterious.honey? Must one cyberstalk an urban beekeeper? What's the rules around pursuing honey that is the "Essence of Detroit".
A Rain Garden in Yorkshire Woods Feeds Detroit’s Honeybees with the Hustle