RIVERBEND GARDENS

Wayne Oliver

When Wayne Oliver first hiked the 65 acres north of the Village of Manchester that would become River Bend Gardens, a native plant botanical garden, it was the 47th parcel of land he had looked at from Adrian to Munith in his quest to find land in the country for his family.

“Manchester has always been the heart of my search because I had lived there as a young man when I first got out of the military,” he said. He had been recruited to take a position at Johnson Controls while he was living in Oklahoma, and they offered to send him to the tiny burg in his home state. “I just fell in love with the village and had promised myself that I would figure out a way to get back there someday.”

Wayne said he has always loved growing plants and has specimens in his collection that are 40 years old. He had planned on having a garden at the property he eventually purchased in 2019, and after his transition to native plantings at the family’s home in Farmington Hills, he envisioned the Manchester acreage as a restored natural landscape.

His interest in horticulture led to his involvement with Michigan State University’s Cooperative Extension program as a Michigan Conservation Steward and he completed the Michigan Master Naturalist program, as well.

That education helped his plans for the property to evolve. Now he and his family, which includes his wife and five children ranging in age from 15 to 35, work to bring the land back to its natural glory. “They all appreciate the garden and our ability to go out there as a family and enjoy the space,” Wayne said. His oldest daughter is now following in his footsteps by enrolling in the Michigan Master Naturalist program. “I’m a father first. John James Audubon said that a conservationist is a man who understands that the land is not given by our fathers, but rather borrowed from our children,” he said. “We’re a consumer society, and we consume so much. This is an opportunity to not consume and to do the opposite and actually put back.”

Douglas Talamay’s “Bringing Nature Home” explains the concept of native plants supporting the ecosystem of native insects, birds, and animals so they can thrive. Wayne said that the fields on his property were sown with hay for 40 years, and to see them bloom the last couple of seasons and really take off this year has been satisfying. “The life out there! When it was hay you would have to search for a cricket or a grasshopper,” he said. “And now when you walk through the prairie the grasshoppers fan out in front of you in waves as you move.” He also noted 20 different species of butterflies in the first season of the land’s recovery. He said that if you plant a native oak tree found in Michigan, it will support 550 species of moths and butterflies, but if you plant a gingko from China it will only support five species of moths or butterflies.

The land has a combination of natural native communities, including an oak opening surrounded by a dry mesic prairie. Along the half-mile of frontage on the River Raisin there is a floodplain forest consisting of beech and maple trees, where they are working on preservation and eliminating invasive species. A dry mesic southern forest of oak-hickory and a wet prairie are also being cared for and restored. A fen on the property has a dozen springs that create groundwater, and contains some very rare species. One of the first things they developed was a three-mile looped trail that travels around the land’s perimeter and through each of the different habitats.

Wayne plans to introduce goats, provided by McLennan Landscape of Manchester, to a fenced-off area in the oak-hickory forest, and is building aviaries for prairie chickens.

At one time, Prairie chickens were in 82 of the 83 counties in Michigan and each county had a hunting season for them, but now the Michigan Department of Natural Resources doesn’t recognize the birds as a native species. When the Oliver family obtains the birds for the aviaries, it will be the first time prairie chickens have lived in Michigan since 1983, and the first time they will inhabit Washtenaw County since 1940.

River Bend Gardens’ website and the River Bend Gardens Facebook page were created to inform the community of what’s going on at the property. The land is not currently open to the public, although Wayne did not rule out that possibility for the future. Plans made to open the gardens for a Passport to Manchester event were curtailed due to the massive storm (and downed trees) in midAugust.

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He has taken a group of fourth-grade students on a nature hike to teach them about early spring flowers and wants to make people more aware of environmental education.

His inspiration for taking on such an extensive passion project is his children. “They say a legacy is a garden the gardener will never see finished,” he said. “It’s for my kids.” n

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