For five years our client was unable to reach the backyard from the deck without having to circumnavigate the house. Due to this, the backyard didn't see much action, or much love. In cases like this, it is great to be able to reunite people with the landscapes that they intimately live with. We designed and built steps from the second floor deck that would enable to owners, their kids, and their dog, the ability to use the backyard as a gathering space. We built a small flagstone patio, and will eventually plant out the garden to create a bit more privacy and greenery to cozy up the area and make it a destination, rather than just an inaccessible eyesore. We also installed tiered greenbeds in the front yard, and a cistern along the side of the house that they can use to water the vegetables with. All in all, a lovely project, and so great to see the yard become a favorite spot for the family to enjoy. Stage One: Stage 2: Stage 3: Next up... plants!
Paradise Parking Plots is hosted at Hillside Church in Kent and is a project with World Relief Seattle. The goal is to transform 2 acres of parking lot into a community farm for the surrounding refugee population which will become a hub for community building through food. Designed by Stone Soup Gardens, Paradise Parking Plots will be a powerful demonstration home to the first raingardens in Kent, will capture part of a 30,000 square foot roof into large cisterns, and will help to turn a natural spring into a habitat pond. (The stream currently runs across the pavement and into a storm drain.) On June 23rd, Stone Soup Gardens employees went to the first Depave project to help create a garden paradise! Marco, our designer, Patrick, our crew lead, Susan, our Office Manager, and Jake - our esteemed leader headed off to pick up a shovel and lend a few hands. Here is a look at the overall property before the depave. (The parking lot we were working to remove is the rectangular lot below the church building. ) Thanks to Turner Construction, their fabulous employees, their awesome heavy equipment, tools, and safety gear, along with other volunteers from World Relief Seattle, King County Conservation District, and Hillside Church, we were able to remove most of the asphalt from the parking areas, and put it into large dumpsters to be hauled away. Great job everyone! We are looking forward to seeing this as it progresses. Check out this article from King 5 about the project.
KCD has prepared a self-guided tour map of Hügelkultur sites across King County, and one of our Stone Soup client gardens is on the map! Now the Hugel-curious can see different forms of Hugelkultur (from urban to rural, from in-ground to raised containers). Visit 6 of the 10 sites and receive a Hugelkultur t-shirt (while supplies last).
Click here for the map! Paradise Parking Plots is hosted at Hillside Church in Kent and is a project with World Relief Seattle. The goal is to transform 2 acres of parking lot into a community farm for the surrounding refugee population which will become a hub for community building through food. Designed by Stone Soup Gardens, Paradise Parking Plots will be a powerful demonstration home to the first raingardens in Kent, will capture part of a 30,000 square foot roof into large cisterns, and will help to turn a natural spring into a habitat pond. (The stream currently runs across the pavement and into a storm drain.)
On June 23rd, they are hosting a volunteer party led by the employees of Turner Construction who will be de-paving and releasing the earth from the confines of asphalt. It's going to be ground breaking! They are asking for additional help from the community to aid in this work, all are welcome and there is much to do. Please RSVP to Tahmina Martelly at TMartelly@wr.org so that enough safety gear and lunch can be provided. Our work at Alleycat Acres Wetmore Garden project is still underway. Since this is a volunteer and community led job, we could use your help! Alleycat Acres hosts work parties at Wetmore the last Saturday of the month, which is this coming Saturday, May 27th from 10 am - 2 pm. Come on out and get your hands dirty and help create this awesome gathering space, garden plots, trails, and urban food forest.
Questions? Want to find out more? The Wetmore Community Farm is coordinated by Kyla Rudnick and community liaison Annalisa Moore. You can reach them here: Kyla@alleycat-acres.org and Annalisa@alleycat-acres.org. Volunteer work party at Wetmore Community Gardens Saturday, May 27th - 10 am - 2 pm Corner of Wetmore Ave S and S Estelle St, just off Rainier Ave S. (map) http://www.alleycat-acres.org/wetmore Sometimes all it takes is a few well placed features to make the garden feel a more like home. With this lovely mid-century, drainage was a bit of an issue. The house sits at the bottom of a slope, and ends in a cul-de-sac. In order to alleviate this, we created raingardens on each side of the house in a couple of small pocket garden spaces. This will help funnel water and keep it from pooling in the yard. The raingardens will also filter the water from the driveway runoff which is essential since Lake Washington is just a short stroll away.
We also installed a plank board fence and arbor along the west side of the property which will provide privacy and a safe play space for the kids, while creating an area for trailing plants in the shadier areas of the backyard. A lovely project, lovely clients, and a lovely home, what more could we ask for? Outdoor living is something we all strive for more of here at Stone Soup Gardens. One of our clients has realized this in a truly spectacular way. Having installed two cisterns a couple of years ago, our client came back with dream plans of building an oasis with a hot tub and outdoor shower to replace her existing uneven grass backyard. This spring we returned to put in a brick paver patio to connect the shower and hot tub, a sloping pathway, and a cute little corner raingarden.
While it was a mucky and unpredictable time to create a level patio during the wettest spring season we've ever had, we think it turned out beautifully. It is one heck of a relaxing outdoor hideaway. With Seattle being hilly, yard space is often sculpted around unusual terrain. We see this fairly often, and find many owners that are at a loss on how to take full advantage of these uneven spaces. As well as being difficult to envision, the spaces are generally hard to tame, manage, or manipulate into something worth enjoying. Stone Soup Gardens loves these kinds of challenges. Whether you have a steep slope, a soggy pit, or a hilly blackberry divide, we can turn your unused space into something for you and your family to enjoy. We can create a functional area for growing edible plants, or create a level retreat for those sunny spring and summer days. One of our clients in Columbia City has just such a space. While the yard area itself is fairly level, it is raised up sharply on a hill overlooking the street, and the backyard was a bramble patch. Seeing the unused potential of the area, our client contacted us to see what we could do. Hence, the great berry wall came into play. The great berry wall was built using downed timber from a local contact. We had the majority of the logs cut to a specific size, while others we trimmed to create easy step access in and out of the raised bed. This allows for ease of picking as the berries come into season, as well as for watering and pruning once summer and fall roll around. We planted the raised bed out with different types of raspberries, strawberries, gumi berries, lingon berries, thimbleberry, chilean guava, lavender, and sage, as well as espalier apples and pears, chives, and red flowering currant in other parts of the yard. This means that there will be a good selection of plants that stay green throughout the year, as well as those that will shed their leaves during the winter. It also creates a nice color palette for the eyes, as well as flavors for the mouth! For a bit of flare, we also included a bike wheel arbor along the front wall of the house, which was a great way to add interest, while providing a surface for things to climb on. We installed a laundry to landscape greywater system in the front yard which will water the espalier trees and herbs, and in the backyard we installed a cistern to side sewer which will provide water for the raised bed in the backyard. Take a look at the project beforehand: And here it is now:
Join us for the exciting reveal of Stone Soup Gardens' design options for the Wetmore Community Garden. Our designers will present 2-3 options for the community garden based on all the feedback we have received from the neighborhood. This is the last step before we finalize the design and submit it for permitting so we hope you can make it!
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