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@stonesoupgardens 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. 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! Project overhauls are often some of the most fun and challenging to do. This Columbia City home owner was looking for a modern update on their existing back deck. The homeowner was looking to capitalize on the cistern rebate which they were eligible for through the Rainwise Program, and opted to install a cistern next to the house. They also asked for a raised bed to be incorporated into the design, to provide them a bit of growing space which could be accessible from the deck. Our designer, Aaron Buchholz, went to work and came up with a cedar deck with an L-shaped raised bed, new stairs into the home, and of course the pergola! The design also included an elevated base for the cistern, along with an arbor duct which runs from the guttering on both sides of the house, directly into the cistern. Once the design was approved by our client, our team went to work! Thanks to our carpenter extraordinaire, Trevor Madsen, along with the rest of our fabulous crew, we completed the deck, the staining, and the details despite the weather challenges. The result was this lovely pergola which will provide a patch of shade in the summer, a cistern which will collect the rainwater for the garden while helping with storm water overflow, and a deck that will be a wonderful gathering spot for the family for years to come. 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.
Our clients for this job have been working with us over the last few years to do a number of great changes on their backyard garden retreat. Last year we put in the long arbor and fenced off portions of the backyard for the chickens. Here is the before and after: This year we returned to put in brick and flagstone pathways between the studio and the raised beds to help keep the area dry and walkable during the rainy season.
The clients wanted to replace the original stone beds with something that looked a bit medieval, maybe with turrets, they said. This is what we came up with. These beds will last a very long time. Needless to say, we have two very happy clients. This house in North Seattle has been a great transformation. Our designer, Jackie Cramer, did a fabulous job on this design. Even with the smaller yard size, we were really able to pack a lot of wonderful features into this smaller garden space.
The raingarden in the front will be full of edible plants, along with the fence line and arbor running across the front side of the house and the patio. The owners will be able to walk along on their newly installed pathway and pick all sorts of things including figs, kiwi, lavender, sage, rosemary, and huckleberry, just to name a few! We graded the yard and created the small rockery for the rain garden in the front, while also leveling the area behind the fence. We installed a 530 gallon cistern which will capture the roof runoff and flow into the rain garden. We installed the poured concrete patio and arbor which is a gorgeous place to be on a sunny day. We also put in a small patio in the back, and are completing the project by laying the front with a small grassy area for the kids to play, and finishing up with the final installation of the plants. That's a wrap! We've completed this awesome permaculture paradise in West Seattle. It was a great deal of hard work, but a really rewarding process. The plants have been installed, the barked pathways and retaining walls are sculpted, the irrigation lines are set, the lawn has been seeded, and the owners are moving in!
We'll be checking in again on this client after the new year, so stay tuned as we watch this outdoor space develop and grow!
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