Welcome Mat: Ferndale florist hits the road with mobile flower cart

Maureen Feighan
The Detroit News
Olive's Bloombox now has a mobile flower cart that can be rented for private events.

Local florist goes on the road with mobile flower cart

Ferndale flower shop Olive's Bloombox is hitting the road. Owner Laurie Bolach now has a mobile flower cart that she and her team will use to make arrangements on the road. The four-foot by six-foot cart is available to rent for private events like weddings, showers, birthdays and more. Bolach also eventually plans to bring the cart to local businesses, restaurants and community events. Its next stop is July 19 at Grey Ghost in Detroit. Olive's Bloombox is at 1011 Livernois. Call (248) 794-3652.

Motawi Tileworks introduced a new peony tile this year.

A peony that never wilts from Motawi Tileworks

Peonies may be nearly past their prime time this season -- they are typically in bloom from late spring to early summer -- but there's a way to keep them in bloom year-round: a tile. Motawi Tileworks in Ann Arbor has introduced a new 4-inch-by-4-inch peony tile that perfectly captures the magic of this special tile. It's $40. Tiles can be purchased from the Motawi showroom (they have curbside pickup) or online. Go to https://www.motawi.com/.

A new Houzz survey found kitchens are still the No. 1 room to renovate.

Survey: Kitchens, bathrooms favorite rooms to renovate

A new survey of 87,000 homeowners found baby boomers and Gen X homeowners are doing the most renovations and kitchens and guest bathrooms are the most popular spaces to tackle. The 2020 Houzz & Home Survey analyzed renovation trends from both 2019 and so far in 2020 and found 85 percent are being done by baby boomers or Generation X, up from 82 percent in the last survey. Kitchens and bathrooms are the rooms most homeowners renovate -- 27 percent of respondents redoing kitchens while 25 percent were doing bathrooms -- though home offices are growing in popular. The median renovation price tag, meanwhile, dipped slightly to $13,000 from $15,000 in 2018, the survey found. To see the survey, click here

A monarch butterfly sips nectar on bright orange butterfly milkweed blooms. Look carefully, and you'll see a couple of caterpillars in the picture, too. Butterfly milkweed plants are the only food monarch caterpillars eat. The plants often bloom throughout the summer, attracting generations of butterflies and other pollinators.

Do your part to help pollinators

National Pollinator Week ended June 28, and if there was ever a time to support our pollinators, now is it. Pollinators -- such as bees, butterflies and birds -- move pollen from flowers of the same species, leading to fertilization and later seed and fruit production for plants. According to the Pollinator Partnership, roughly 1,000 plants grown for food, beverages, fibers, spices, and medicines need to be pollinated by animals in order to produce the goods on which we depend. But as pollinators' habitat disappears, threatening their existence, we need to help. One way to help butterflies is to plant native plants, such as milkweed for monarch butterflies. Ten milkweed species are native to Michigan – the most widespread of which are common milkweed, butterfly milkweed and swamp milkweed. If you'd like to plant milkweed in your own yard, Barson's Greenhouse, 6414 Merrimen in Westland, carries milkweed. To learn more about pollinators, click here.