Giving Form to Proactive Climate Action

The fall of 2019 welcomed a diverse planting at the corner of Marsh Road and Central Park Drive in Okemos, MI. Inspired by Meridian Township’s Climate Action goals, we designed a foreground planting for their newly installed 20kW solar panel. The pollinator friendly plant groupings interweave throughout the planting bed to communicate the interconnected complexity of climate.

Solar Panel Planting Vision

The Township had several goals for the panel’s contextual plantings:

Communicate Meridian Township’s commitment to meeting its climate action goals
Test out plants that the Township can use in other areas to reduce the amount of turfgrass that they are currently mowing
Propose plantings that provide wildlife / pollinator habitat
Soften the industrial look of the solar panel (without casting shadow on the panel)

Demonstration of the layout of the pollinator planting in a colored plan view graphic

Dynamic Nature; a Pollinator Planting

The solar panel plants have a variety of flower colors, leaf textures and foliage colors that change throughout the seasons. Luke Landscape Company did a great job of installing the serpentine plant masses that weave throughout the solar panel planting. The ever changing nature of the planting celebrates the solar panel and gives residents something new to see each time they drive by.

Native pollinator plant, Allium cernuum is attracting bumble bees

Any given day, bees, butterflies, moths and other pollinators are seen flitting around the pollinator planting collecting nectar and spreading pollen.