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!
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 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!
Over the last month, Stone Soup Gardens has been immersed in a new construction job on the west side of Seattle. We came to the project when the new house was 90% complete, and began working with the owner and designer to create a gorgeous garden and outdoor retreat. The design was done by Jenny Pell, a well known and respected founding member of Permaculture Now! When we began, the landscape was a giant dirt pile. Our first week on the job involved grading and prepping the area around the house for the Desert Stone Patio installation. We prepped and installed a flagstone pathway from the driveway to the front door, and we began the process of grading and prepping the different areas of the garden, including a rockery, raingarden, and raised beds. Next up is laying the Desert Stone patio, completing the rockery and log accents for the beds, as well as building the cedar raised beds for the side of the house.
There are more pictures to come as we progress on this awesome project. Stay tuned!
Summer is a busy time here at Stone Soup Gardens. There are so many awesome projects afoot. Here is a little sneak peak of a few of the great gardens we've been working on. Stay tuned, the final pictures are yet to come... These are masonry hugelculture beds done in the "roman-ruin" style. This is a new construction with a landscape design done by the fabulous Jenny Pell. We will begin on this project in August. Huge permaculture enthusiasts, these clients want a cistern which will overflow into the raingarden, and a fully edible front yard.
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