Florist honors Sept. 11 victims with bouquet giveaway

Daryl DePottey remembers wandering the streets of Ferndale after the Sept. 11 attacks. He saw strangers making eye contact with strangers. Nodding their heads. Even waving.
"For the first time in my lifetime there was no color, no gender, or orientation differences between us. We were all Americans," says the 47-year-old Nature Nook owner.
He admits that sentiment may be hokey, but it's how he felt – and how he wishes people felt every day. "I wish that maybe, in my own little way, I can remind people of that patriotic feeling," he says.
That's why, on Sept. 11, Nature Nook will giveaway about 3,000 bouquets, one to account for each fatality, to drivers on Nine Mile.
"Never forget the past, it is a great teacher," he says.
Ferndale's oldest florist shop, which recently moved across the street after 25 years in the same location, began remembering the Sept. 11 victims six years ago, 10 months after DePottey and his partner Nadine "Bunny" Gladfelter purchased it. He had read an article that nearly 50 percent of high school graduates didn't know the date of Pearl Harbor. Also, his then 19-year-old son, didn't understand why it took a disaster to unite people. After all, his father's never been that way.
"I didn't need an event to respect what the police, fire and soldiers do for us," DePottey says. "It has always been in my make-up."
Nature Nook, located at 522 E. Nine Mile Road, moved to a different and larger location to lower their overhead costs, Depottey says, so they could continue to offer high value goods without sacrificing quality, service or style. It was also beneficial to the employees – a group that DePottey and Gladfelter wanted to see prosper.
"I wanted this to be a career for them," DePottey says, "never just a job."