Even with traffic and road construction, it’s been a real pleasure to drive to work the last couple of weeks to see our Facilities Management and Operations Department’s creative work come to life.

A six-acre vacant lot at the south end of the county campus along Telegraph Road used to be just another piece of property that needed to be mowed every week from spring through fall.

But now, it’s a glorious sight in the waning days of summer: a swath of sunflowers the size of four football fields serves not only as a home to wildlife and pollinators, but also as a bright point in the day for any and all who pass along that stretch of Telegraph Road in Pontiac.

Mark Baldwin, our chief of Landscape Services and his team create the self-reliant, sustainable garden every spring – and have been doing so since 2021 - planting 1,200 pounds of sunflower seeds across the field. They don’t collect the seeds in the fall, allowing them to return to the soil to create an even more lush field of golden beauty in each subsequent year.

There are many benefits of the field. Our grounds team doesn’t have to mow the field every week, saving countless gallons of gas and the emissions that come along with it.

The sunflowers produce pollen and nectar that are essential nutrients for pollinators like bees, dragonflies and butterflies. And the seeds and leaves are a major food source for squirrels, birds, deer and wild turkeys.

The flowers only need rainwater and sunshine to create a little patch of paradise, which fits in nicely with our goal of creating an environmentally sustainable government campus that is cutting down on the carbon emissions harming our planet.

It’s just one of the many ways we’re becoming a greener campus, including installing EV chargers, leaning in on a robust recycling program, installing solar panels on some of our buildings and conducting energy audits on our buildings to become more energy efficient.

The sunflowers, though, are probably one of our more visible efforts, at least for the next couple of weeks.

And I hope they bring the same smile to your face that our county employees and I are sharing as we come to work each day.

Mark said it best, “Sunflowers just make people happy.”