Standing on the sidewalk, looking up a steep slope towards the home of Landscape Architect Keith Geller, you know you’re about to enter a special landscape. Over the past 30 years, Geller has transformed a bare, grassy slope into an forested urban haven. His yard has been featured in magazines, books and newspapers stories and [...]
This is an excerpt from my latest post at the Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens blog. Click the link below to visit the full post. Every city has parks, however not all parks are created equal. Many are used primarily for recreation, others for dogs, but some are devoted to nature. Seattle is lucky to [...]
This is an excerpt from my latest post at the Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens blog. Click the link below to visit the full post. For anyone with an interest in botany and horticulture, Kew Royal Botanical Gardens in London is like the holy grail. Started in 1759, this garden is now over 250 years old and [...]
Magnuson Park is located in Seattle along Lake Washington, north of the University of Washington. The park has a long history of dramatic land use change and part of it has now come back full circle. In the days of early settlers the area was a wetlands, alder grove, and Douglas fir forest with trees [...]
The 2nd annual backyard habitat tour in Shoreline, an area just north of Seattle, was dubbed ‘Where Our Wild Things Are‘ and presented six, certified yards. Shoreline is a Certified Community Wildlife Habitat through the National Wildlife Federation. The gardens ranged from just begun to established and featured highlights such as urban farming, accessibility and integrated family [...]
Last February I visited the Woodland Park Zoo to view the green roof on the Zoomazium building. At that point, in 2010, the roof was about four years old already so I didn’t expect dramatic changes when I revisited recently. However, the roof looked completely different. What was simply low-growing grasses and small shrubs had transformed [...]
The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks in Seattle, have been moving boats and other vessels from the Puget Sound to Lake Washington and beyond since 1917. The Army Corps of Engineers built and maintains the locks, garden, grounds and buildings. To the east of the locks is Salmon Bay, a freshwater bay connecting to the rest [...]
The 11th annual Tukwila Backyard Wildlife Festival took place last weekend in Tukwila, Washington. Tukwila has the distinction of being the first community in the state of Washington, and only the fourth in the nation, to become certified by the National Wildlife Federation as Community Wildlife Habitat. In addition to yards, all of Tukwila’s schools were [...]
The Olympic Sculpture Park in Seattle is a beautiful place. The 8.5 acre park sits alongside Elliott Bay, overlooking the Puget Sound, islands and the Olympic Mountains to the west, downtown Seattle to the south and the Space Needle to the east. The site is divided by a major street, railroad tracks and a bike [...]
This post is for Marsh Madness, an idea from Ken Lo at the Connected by Nature Blog. “Brackishology n., (brackish, slightly salty, as in the combination of seawater & fresh water, + ology, the study of) the study of wetlands during the NCAA basketball tournament. See also #MarshMadness.” Read more about Marsh Madness and Brackishology [...]
Located in the Little Quarter in Prague, the Wallenstein Palace (Valdštejnský Palác) Gardens are beautiful, interesting and full of unintentional habitat. Wallenstein Palace is grand, consisting of twenty-three houses, three gardens and five courtyards. The gardens are completely enclosed by the buildings and walls and only accessible by two entries. Commissioned by, and named after Habsburg general Albrecht z [...]
Sunset Park is located in Corvallis, Oregon in the Willamette Valley. Its current structure is fairly new, having been renovated around 2006 to restore wetland habitat for the Dunawi Creek that runs along the edge of the park. Dunawi Creek is an urban, stream running from Bald Hill, through town to the confluence with Mary’s [...]