Northbrook company to build suburban garden for bees and other pollinators

A Northbrook company has been tapped to create an unusual element at a new suburban park.

Apex Landscaping will build a garden designed to attract honeybees, butterflies and other pollinators to Courtland Commons in Mundelein. That park is coming to vacant land on Courtland Street, just east of Seymour Avenue.

Mundelein's village board voted Monday to give the job to Apex.

Vegetation native to the area will be planted in the garden, and a walking path will be built. Other man-made elements will be added, too.

The work will be done this spring to give plants "an optimal growth period," Public Works and Engineering Director Adam Boeche said in a memo.

Apex will be paid $85,466 for its work. A $25,000 grant from Canadian National Railway's America in Bloom program will offset part of the expense.

The neighborhood where Courtland Commons is to be built already is an ecological marvel.

The park will adjoin a roughly 8-acre detention pond that developed into a diverse ecosystem with abundant vegetation, insects, mammals, birds and other creatures since it was built just a few years ago.

Both projects are part of a nearly $9.2 million flood-control project. The dilapidated former headquarters of U.S. Music Corp. was torn down to make room for the pond and the park.