The Greening of Detroit - Lafayette Greens

Hey, we’re Vicky🇵🇪 and Malte🇩🇪 from the travel blog "Traveling Is Our Passion"! If you have just one day in Detroit, a great place to see how the city is evolving is The Greening of Detroit – Lafayette Greens. Located in downtown, this small urban garden showcases Detroit’s efforts to turn once-barren, grey spaces into vibrant green areas. It was a great spot for us to see how the city is transforming. For more details and our other top travel recommendations, check out our full blog post!

We enjoy walking in Detroit. Especially when we find treasures like the Greening of Detroit. Beautiful garden that is well maintained and laid out. Quite a selection of plants along with sculptures and paintings. Find a bench suit down and enjoy. A nice escape from the rush of downtown.

A great garden of greenery in Detroit. Find a bench or picnic on the ground and enjoy some beautiful flowers and quiet time in the city. There are individual garden beds with a variety of plants and flowers, even some unique things growing.

The Greening of Detroit - Lafayette Greens had an amazing fundraiser that I absolutely loved. The first time I have ever been there and the grounds are very interesting with beautiful flowers; trees and vegetables that all serve the community and local restaurants. This is smack dab in the heart of Downtown Detroit. I look forward to supporting this event again next year and visiting the gardens again.

Nice little green space. Flowers and veggies growing beautifully. Some shady spots to sit and take in the greening area.

This is a great space full of a variety of flowers interesting plants, I appreciate a garden in the city.

It's a really neat place to walk and also sit and enjoy the outdoors and everything green.. They have apple trees, herbs, flowers and vegetables. Very well taken care of. They have table and chairs if you'd like to sit and relax. Really neat art deco as well.

This was a nice place to relax after running around Detroit. It helps that there’s a shady area to sit in. The flowers are pretty and all taken care of.

Very cool garden in Downtown Detroit that has a variety of flowers and other greenery. Good spot for photos as well. Check it out!

I could see Lafayette Greens from my hotel room in downtown Detroit. I was like, "Whoa! What this this cool place?" So I went down to check it out. Unfortunately, this community garden is closed most of the time. It was closed when I visited. According to a sign on the gate, it's open for a few hours on certain days, when volunteers come in and tend the gardens and grounds. But from what I could see from behind the gate, this spot of urban farming is tidy and thoughtfully planned. There are lots of raised beds, and paths in between. This little spot of greenery lives in the middle of downtown Detroit, amid the hustle and bustle of traffic, which is really cool.

A great park in the middle of downtown Detroit. I was definitely surprised to find this right in the heart of town. It was a great place for an impromptu photo shoot. It's directly behind the two Coney Island restaurants and also a great area to park. I parked right across the street from the park and I had no issues.

Stumbled upon an amazing community garden right in the heart of downtown! The entrance is an arch crafted of recycled steel beams that serve as a trellis for a beautiful leafy foliage growing all around it. The sign at the entrance describes the coming together of the community members and businesses to create the Peace Mosaic which is the center of the space. It was so peaceful I saw someone catching a lunchtime nap. There are rows and rows of raised beds lined with bench seating and overflowing with different varieties of flowers and veggies in full bloom. There are displays of artwork obviously made by children tucked away in a back corner. While the east side of the garden saddles up next to the building that houses the Bathtub Pub and is filled with wrought iron patio tables outfitted with umbrellas. Simply an adorable space!

What a lovely, lovely spot! I'd always driven by here but today I decided to stop in and check it out before grabbing a bite at Lafayette Coney Island. I was SO impressed. As someone who recently took up gardening I know how much work has gone into making this place as vibrant and lush as it is. The lavender spills out the boxes and smells amazing, tons of bees buzzing around helping pollinate all the fruits and veggies. Most excellent! Tons of veggies are grown here--artichokes, peas, swiss chard, and other lettuces. Herbs and some fruits as well (raspberries, apples, etc). A ton of lovely flowers too! Sunflowers reach the sky and create lots of color in the middle of a concrete heavy downtown. A sensory garden encourages folks to touch, smell, and look and a few robot like sculptures add some interesting views to the space. It's just a peaceful and interesting place to spend a bit of time. And the best part? All the edibles grown are donated to Gleaner's Community Food Bank. So awesome!

Cute little urban garden in downtown Detroit. During my last visit to Detroit, I was walking from my hotel to Lafayette Coney's and chanced upon here. Something about the garden enticed me to come take a look... the modern art sculptures? the friendly sunflowers? the welcoming archways? I think probably a combination of all those elements. Lafayette Gardens are a peaceful, beautiful sanctuary in the middle the busy, hustle-bustle of downtown Detroit. It features plants, shrubs, and flowers of all different types. Two of my favorite sections/plants are the lavendar plants since these plants smells so, so good, and the sunflowers that are planted in various plots of the gardens since they're such warm and bright flowers. One of the cool aspects of this garden is that they grow a lot of veggies that once ripe, are harvested and donated to a food bank. Now that's pretty cool! Lastly, I like the modern, urban art sculptures located primarily in the right-hand corner of Lafayette Greens...they add a quirky and cute touch to place. It's pretty cool to see urban sustainability like here at the Greens. After having visited the Lafayette Greens and reading up on other reviews on this place on Yelp, it appears that most people stumbled upon the Greens before/after grabbing a Coney dog (like myself!). I definitely think that Lafayette Greens are worth a look and should be on people's things to do while visiting Detroit (and shouldn't just be on your way to/from eating a Coney dog). I think that no trip to downtown Detroit is complete without a visit here.

"Built on the former site of the historic Lafayette Building, Lafayette Greens is a nearly half-acre garden space in the downtown district of Detroit. With 35 raised beds, fruit trees, a children's garden and more, Lafayette Greens works as a demonstration garden with edible foods and green space for relaxation. Come check us out!" It was a blast to see this garden come to life in just a few brief months! Even though I could have made bank opening a parking garage...seeing I pay 90-120 monthly to park. Lots of benches to sit at, some tables and chairs with umbrellas for shade.... Themed gardens ie. scents, butterfly, grasses, colors. Gardens made by master gardeners. The food grown goes to local food banks. Volunteers may get to keep some left overs. Looking for volunteers to! An amazing use of land! It really brightens up my work day. Thank you Compuware... Hope there is much more to come. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lafayette-Greens/159224250814168

Five stars for the initiative alone! Lafayette Greens is one of my favorite places in the D. It also coincidentally is one of my favorite places to photograph, though mainly my interest lies in steet art and Detroit ruins. This is such a bright, happy place in an unusual setting. I love urban gardens. They bring a certain calm to concrete jungles. This initiative is awesome, and embraces what Detroit is all about. Progress. Positivity. Hope. Beautification. I love it. Between large highrises you will find a little oasis. There are colorful flower beds, attracting little bugs and beautiful insects alike. If you stay really still, you will have the pleasure of butterfly watching - as these little friends are as thankful for this garden as I am. Walking through a different section you will pass heavily scented fresh herbs, and the most beautiful fresh tomatoes and vegetables you will ever see. All this beauty and tranquility is brought to us by volunteers, whom are doing a great job! Veggies will be donated to local groups whom feed the needy. This little garden embraces so many important things, all while providing sheer happiness to whomever just wants to take a few steps back, breathe and relax.

What an amazing spot to enjoy in the summer. There's a patio area, beautifully landscaped community garden & is connected to Bathtub Bar (evenings). If you're waiting in line at an establishment on Woodward... come here & enjoy the beauty of downtown Detroit!

I write this review as someone completely clueless, having stumbled into this beautiful garden after stuffing my face with Coneys. I knew nothing about the who, why, or exact whats, but sometimes that's the best way to experience things. An out-of-town friend and I wandered in after our Coney-palooza throwdown, and it's safe to say that visiting it (in late September) was even better than visiting the dueling Coneys. It's beautifully maintained, and one of those things that becomes even more amazing because...it was just THERE. We hadn't planned to visit, we knew nothing about it, but wandering around was absolutely amazing. Volunteers are always welcome to help with maintenance, and if I worked downtown I'd be all over it...spending some time in a true Detroit gem like this is good for the soul, the environment, and for I Heart Detroit morale. There is no excuse for hitting up the dueling Coneys and at least taking photos (and leaving only footprints!) here.

Absolutely stunning...I'm so proud to be a Detroiter when I see the amazing beauty of Downtown Detroit. I sometimes wish I could go back to living down there, anywho beautiful , peaceful, and people seemed to really respect it, appreciate it and for me love it. My camera died so I would've posted more pics than I did, but no worries here... I'm gonna post more pics when the "fruits" of the volunteers work has ripened.