Culture
Turning Detroit's Invasive Plants Into Community-Building Art
Megan Heeres invites locals to pitch in to transform unwanted shrubs and grasses into paper.
You might find Megan Heeres steaming woody honeysuckle stems or chopping handfuls of garlic mustard. That’s the first step towards turning the stubborn invasive plants into sheets of paper.
The daughter and granddaughter of gardeners in Battle Creek, Michigan, Heeres worked on urban gardens after moving to Southwest Detroit. A few years ago, she paired up with the national Student Conservation Association to weed out invasive species encroaching on Belle Isle, a 985-acre park in the Detroit River. The island is a prime spot for invasives. Each year, the city’s Department of Natural Resources recruits troops of volunteers to combat thickets of honeysuckle and patches of phragmites, a perennial grass that grows in wetlands.