Shrubbery Sculpture Delights Passersby in Berkley

It will come as no surprise that the home at the northeast corner of Cass and Catalpa in Berkley is inhabited by creative souls.

That's because resident Tim Dalian has transformed an ordinary shrubbery on the side of the property into a sculpture that many see as a caterpillar.

"Check out The Very Hungry Caterpillar at the corner of Cass and Catalpa," reader Mechelle Bernard wrote recently on Berkley Patch's wall on Facebook. "There's an imaginative gardener living there!"

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a popular children's picture book about one caterpillar's journey to become a butterfly.

"It's open for anybody to say what it is," said Dalian, who created the shrubbery sculpture using a ladder and hedge clipper. "At one point, I thought maybe it would be a pumpkin."

His daughter Kristina, 10, piped in: "It's a caterpillar with a Mohawk."

Dalian said the piece took him about three to four hours to create on Father's Day. Since then, he's added lights for the Fourth of July.

"It's going to get decked out for Halloween and maybe it'll turn into Santa Claus," he said.

The vegetation artist said the response to his creation has been surprising.

"I didn't know people were going to go that crazy," he said. "If I'm out there, people stop."

Dalian said he even received a photo of the shrubbery with a hand-written note of appreciation in his mailbox from an anonymous neighbor.

"People are pretty ecstatic over it. I better trim it," Dalian joked.

Kristina, who shares her father's creative spirit and made him a custom guitar pick for Father's Day, said she thinks the caterpillar is cool.

"My friend, when she got back from vacation, her family stopped and looked at it," she said with proud smile.

When asked what inspired him, Dalian replied: "It just looked like it needed it."