14
THE DAVEY BULLETIN
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November/December 2018
TEAM SPIRIT CONQUERS HIGHWAY PLANTING CHALLENGE
The dull, gray asphalt of a Michigan
highway has the fresh greenery of
nearly 4,400 carefully selected trees
and shrubs to brighten the commute
for drivers along Interstate 75 just
outside of Detroit.
Davey Resource Group (DRG), the
Davey Nursery, the Detroit North
Commercial Landscape Services
(CLS) territory and the North Detroit
Residential/Commercial (R/C) office
all came together to improve the
freeway's aesthetics for the client,
the Michigan Department of
ransportation (MDOT).
Cheryl Daniels, project manager, DRG,
said 23 total employees collaborated
to improve the landscape of a stretch
of highway spanning about 3.1 miles
and including on-and-off ramps and
other open areas.
"It's definitely been a team effort,
and it's been great working across
the service lines with everybody
and seeing their responsiveness and
how committed they are," Daniels said.
The project started when DRG, ROWE
Professional Services and Value
Engineering consulted with MDOT to
develop a planting plan for the highway
landscape improvements, said Ana
Burns, area manager, DRG. The phys-
ical work got under way in the spring
of 2018 with over 3,000 plantings.
An additional nearly 1,400 trees were
planted in October and November.
The plantings consisted of about 4,000
trees with approximately 400 shrubs.
MISSION
Above: The Davey Nursery provided all
the trees for the MDOT I-75 project.
Right: One of 4,400 new plantings is
installed along I-75 near Detroit.
Close to 80 percent of all the trees
were provided by the Davey Nursery,
which dug, packaged, shipped or
installed each one. DRG paid careful
attention to MDOT's preference for
species, which were chosen based
on a preference for native trees,
the hardiness zone, salt tolerance,
sun and shade requirements and
other factors, Daniels said.
About 50 different species were
planted ranging from red maples to
horse chestnuts, catalpas, hackberries,
