Talk about a cute little front yard. These clients were looking to maximize their garden space, while adding interest through the use of arbors. We do so love to build arbors. The arbor running along the side of the house is actually an arborduct. It houses the pipes running from the gutters of the home into the raingarden, which will filter the roof runoff before heading into the Puget Sound.
The second arbor is simply to provide a bit of architectural interest to the front yard while mimicking the shape of the windows on the house, and providing a bit of screening from the neighbors. For both arbors, we used the same stain as the garage door, which ties the look of the house and the garden together nicely. Soon we will be returning to finish out the pathways leading up to the house, and from the house to the garage. A raingarden is a fantastic addition to a landscape, and can be customized to fit your needs, your wants, and your budget. Whether you want a small streambed, shallow pool, or a simple swale, these features will reduce toxic roof runoff into the side sewer and help protect our valuable Puget Sound.
0 Comments
Hey! Jake Harris of Stone Soup Gardens was featured on the Seattle Channel! Watch the video to find out more about what the Tilth Edible Plant Sales have to offer, including classes, native plants, organic vegetable starts, and camaraderie with your gardening community! Learn how easy it is to grow your own garden, and how effective it can be in creating a collective impact on our lovely Puget Sound. One raingarden, one vegetable garden, and one cistern at a time!
The next Tilth Plant Sale is in May, you can find out more on our Education Page, or by visiting the Seattle Tilth Website. Oh yes we did. When our awesome music loving clients requested a David Bowie lightening bolt for their garden pathway, we made it happen. The pathway is made from two different colors of flagstone, with a gravel pathway leading along the edges of the property around the raingarden, and through the front gate. The raingarden, which will be rebated through the Rainwise Program, was heavy and full after a huge amount of rain the previous day. We built the fence to create a dog run area, and decided to run an arborduct to conceal the raingarden duct work. This arborduct is one of our favorites, as it provides complete coverage for the pipes running from the house into the raingarden. Through the gate we created a gravel dog run. It contains dog friendly plants including salmonberry, thimbleberry, and a strawberry tree. This makes the poop easy to clean up, and keeps the grassy area behind the house clean for the kids. The raised beds were constructed out of cut alder logs. Logs are a sturdy and long lasting way to create a nice uniform visual in your garden, and a great place to sit while planting, weeding, or simply enjoying the space. The other areas, including the rockery in the front of the home, contain native plants that will create a pollinator habitat which will be friendly to the birds and the bees once the plants mature.
By doing this, we were able to take advantage of the natural slope of the yard in order to create better drainage to street level. This slope will also assist in retaining moisture for the plants as it moves through the subsurface and into the water table. The water from the roof is now being captured by a cistern which is connected to the side sewer, while also outflowing through a raingarden along the side of the property. This keeps rainwater from overflowing into Lake Washington and the Puget Sound during the wet months, and will provide a great way for the owner to water her new landscape during the summertime. Soon we will be installing a lovely variety of native and edible plant varieties including echinacea, sage, lupine, rosemary, lavender, red flowering currant, nodding onion, bunchberry, and many more! Stay tuned as we continue our work on this project. More photos to come! Thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hello and hold chickens at the Spring Tilth Plant Sale at Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands. It was a wild weather day, but we had a great time! Jake and Lola were also featured in an upcoming segment on the Seattle Channel. Stay tuned for more information!
Plant Sale & Per order chick sale pick up Saturday, March 5th, 10 am - 4 5133 S Director St Seattle, WA 98118 The birds are excited to bring the joy of chickens to the Seattle farm coop chick sale tommorrow!! We will be debuting our new bike wheel enclosure, selling blueberries, espalier fruit trees, and other unique edibles. Hope to see you there!
Saturday, March 5, 10 am - 2 pm
KCD offices, 1107 SW Grady Way, Renton Stop by the KCD Native Plant Sale & Community Fair on Saturday, March 5 from 10 am to 2 pm at 1107 SW Grady, Renton and talk to Stone Soup Gardens. Stone Soup Gardens is a full service edible landscaping company specializing in beautiful sustainable gardens, connecting folks to their environment and their food. They proudly placed 4th in SPU's 2015 ranking of contractors with the most cistern and rain garden installations, helping clients make the most of the RainWise rebate program and protecting Puget Sound! Their mobile chicken coop pops up around the city from time to time, providing a hands-on educational experience in the more fowl aspects of permaculture. Check out our Education Page for more upcoming Stone Soup Garden community events! Together we'll grow a more sustainable future! Stone Soup Gardens is partnering with Urban Systems Design, King County Waste Water Treatment, Seattle Public Utilities, and Dirt Corp to install two cisterns and a raingarden in an educational community build at Carleton Grocery in Georgetown.
Through evening classes and field experience, Stone Soup Gardens is teaching students design and installation techniques as part of the weekly curriculum for Dirt Corps' Sustainable Landscaper Training Program. This project will serve as an example for the students, as well as the Georgetown Community, about the critical importance of storm water management and its relationship to the Duwamish River. For more information, or to follow along with our progress on the project, check out the DIRT Corp Facebook page! Sometimes it is nice to look back through the year and see how our projects have progressed, not to mention reflecting on all of the positive changes we've made for people in our community, as well as for our regional environment. Several of these projects include raingardens, which help alleviate the water flowing into the sewer, and filter the water before it flows to the sound. They also include permeable surfaces which allow for filtration and provide a comfortable surface to live on during our wet winters.
|
This is how Stone Soup Gardens rolls - check out our blog for current, upcoming, and past projects, events, and other super cool stuff worth mentioning.
Archives
|