Plants, People, Persistence: How Horticulture Changes the Neighborhood
Lee Dean moved from the suburbs to Security Warehouse/Fifth Avenue Lofts over twenty years ago. She’s been transforming its streetscapes ever since.
Fifth Avenue Lofts resident Lee Dean with one of the exciting perennials in the Second Street shade garden she helped initiate.
At Security Warehouse, the first of the buildings to open, “There was almost nothing for landscaping but two trees, dying evergreens, crushed-rock mulch and no irrigation.”
That was then.
The first task was to add irrigation to the Security Warehouse gardens. Then, when the Fifth Avenue and Second Street corner sidewalks were ripped up for an upgrade, Dean worked with the City of Minneapolis to leave a generous curbside strip along Fifth Avenue unpaved, convincing her HOA to extend irrigation lines to the resultant beds before the new and narrower sidewalks was poured.
Crabtrees stay small enough for plenty of direct sun to reach the beds below.
On Fifth Avenue, a yearly warm-weather explosion of heat-loving, sun-worshipping, color-drenched annuals.
The crab trees along Second Street were planted by the developer but the evergreen-heavy plantings were replaced over the years with perennials that favored the shade. Silver maples in the boulevard bed form a “kissing canopy.” “It’s a shady delight to walk down,”says Lee, “and the bed was the place for plants that thrive in the low light and coolness.”
Shady and lush: No wonder this received the Best Realm Improvement Award in 2015 from the Minneapolis Downtown Council.
Second Street was also the chance to experiment with more unusual plants. One seasonal star is Kirengeshoma, now reaching its peak flowering.
Kirengeshoma’s bold foliage is topped by sprays of buds like marbles that seem to dance above, opening into creamed-butter-and-sugar yellow bells offering both drama and elegance.
Each side of the two-building complex, which extends from Washington Avenue to Second Street, is a lesson in plant-based problem solving.
This weeping crab helps hide the cars.
Passion vine flowers are automatic showstoppers, and entice you to sit and enjoy the bench.
Immense pots planted with panache punctuate the outdoor experience property-wide.
Purple-suffused leaves of Abyssinian bananas glow in the late-season sun.
Perhaps Lee’s most far-reaching inspiration is laying “grass”—artificial turf—right by the main entrance for year-round pet relief.
Artificial turf resolved the issue of dead grass—and its frequent replacement—at the building’s entrance.
Lee notes how other North Loop buildings have been enhancing their streetscapes to benefit everyone, whether two-legged or four. “It’s satisfying to have this small role in making the North Loop enjoyable.”
— By Louis Raymond, NLNA Board Member & Culture Correspondent