Information about the garden

There are four main sections of the public Streissguth Gardens. From North to South, these are:

1. The lawn and sloping perennial/ shrub garden flanking the public stair and walkway on East Blaine Street.
2. The Central and principal garden section, heavily wooded and laced with trails on its steep eastern slopes. At its center and along its lower, western edge, along Broadway East, perennial and shrub plantings are interwoven with fruit, berries, and vegetable beds.
3. The Rust Garden, named for the huge amount of rusting trash found while creating this section of the garden. As the Rust Garden has some of the best soil and sun in the garden, it is being developed as a mostly perennial garden.
4. The transition zone, the final section, the southernmost portion, where begins an intentional blurring and softening of the frontier between the developed gardens and the wilder, heavily wooded and undeveloped adjacent hillside that is adjacent to the St. Marks Greenbelt.

The public gardens have emerged slowly and incrementally over the years since the Streissguths purchased the land in 1972. At that time, the hillside was studded with multi-trunked big leaf maples (Acer macrophyllum). The canopy’s understory was a tangle of blackberries (Rubus discolor), feral ivy (Hedra helix), horsetail (Equisetum arvense), bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum), and nettles (Urtica dioica.) What is now Streissguth Gardens commenced with simple beautification of the strip adjacent to the Blaine Street stairs and walk. This provided greater pleasure not only to the Streissguths, but also to the countless Seattleites who use the stairs and walkway for exercise or egress up and down the west side of Capitol Hill.

A hillside trail system followed quickly, launched by a track cut through to admire a native trillium (Trillium ovatum), discovered pushing itself out of the weeds mid-hill. As Ben grew, more trails were built where he and his friends could run and play. Many neighbors began enjoying these paths, and there was finally better access for planting and maintenance. Though no signage has been erected, these trails have been given names. The oldest path is called the Woodland Path; more recent ones are named the High path, the Rock Wall path, and the Raccoon Pool path.

The heavy tree canopy overhead was gradually thinned to enhance views for neighbors above the Garden, to open vistas down the hillside to Lake Union, and to admit more sunlight for newly-planted smaller deciduous trees and shrubs.

Lower down on the hillside, a mucky, swampy section was tamed by channeling ground water into two clay-lined ponds, one being the Raccoon Pool. (The liners of both ponds have since upgraded from clay to EPDM liners.) Here Ann was able to take advantage of the farm training of her youth, commencing food production on the small, sunny, and level plot abutting Broadway East.

Other specialized sections were established: a rhododendron bank with emphasis on scented varieties and species; a winter garden called The Dell, suggested by many family visits to, and much family enjoyment of, Seattle´s Washington Park Arboretum's Winter Garden; groups of shrubs and species roses in a sunny area; a collection of hybrid azaleas selected for the soft colors of their blooms; and a grove of Stewartia trees.

During the late 1970´s the first threat of construction south of the garden came a bit closer as developers cleared a 15 foot wide skid road up the steep slope so soil boring equipment could be dragged up the hillside. Apparently the tests were favorable and potential for a new condo development became more real. Proposed was a 150 foot long by 15 foot high concrete retaining wall and a 20 car underground parking garage with 12 units on top. We were not eager to see this structure replace our trees and the lots that had become such a defining feature of the south end of our little dead-end section of Broadway East. The neighborhood united with Ann & Dan to protect these wooded lots, successfully challenging the developer’s plans, and retaining the beloved woodland. Over the years, the land passed through the hands of several developers. Fortunately, none of their plans came to fruition.

In 1989 the city passed a bond issue to purchase and preserve significant undeveloped land that was threatened by development. Again, the neighborhood rallied, and nominated the three lots south of our garden for purchase. Throughout the year long selection process, the lots rose near to the top of the list of parcels recommended for purchase by the city. As it became clear the city was highly interested in the lots, we started to work with the Parks and Recreation Department on the possibility of gifting our lots conditionally on the purchase of the other three. In 1996 both the purchase and gift were finalized and the city was the proud new owner of a block-long addition to the St. Marks´ greenbelt.

Though the earlier developers did not succeed in their plans, they left their mark on the land: a jungle of weeds and debris from the drilling and equipment. As we worked to clean up small portions of those lots, a boot path quickly developed from our garden across the of the T shaped skid road and into the St. Marks´ Greenbelt. At that time it was still possible to wander deep into the greenbelt. Over the years the access into the greenbelt has been hampered by tree thinning which has allowed more light, and thus more blackberries and clematis, rather than the earlier ivy covering. Our clean-up efforts turned to gardening efforts and even by 1996 there was already a small collection of plants. After the city´s acquisition, we dreamed of blurring the boundary between our gardens and the greenbelt, and over the years that transition zone has grown while the area awaiting renovation has decreased.

As part of his horticulture program at Edmonds Community College, one of Ben’s seminal classes was on public garden management. Finally we had some foundation for understanding the greater view of public gardening. This course, coupled with his many plant identification classes, spurred Ben to create plant tags and a database of the Garden’s plants so this information wouldn´t get lost over time. Meanwhile, Dan started recording the plants in the garden. Together, these projects have come together to become not only the backbone for our record keeping, but also the driving force behind the website. With the huge surge of internet users in the late 90´s and early 2000´s we knew this was the way to disseminate information.

Plans for a book about the history and vision of the Gardens emerged a couple of years later. We worked strongly on it until Ben started a three-year Bachelor’s of Landscape Architecture degree program at the UW. After his completion of the program, the book project resumed with publication by the University of Washington Press, in July 2009.

As Streissguth Gardens has continued to grow our vision of the public garden has also grown. In Autumn 2006 we started a small volunteer program. Since then, over hundreds of hours have been donated. A huge THANK YOU goes out to the many people who have helped in the garden. We are still working out the details of this program, so bear with us. Also, as part of our longer term view of the garden we have endowed a small foundation; through the Seattle Parks Foundation that we hope will eventually cover one part-time gardener.

In Spring 2008, the city installed a water meter, near the north end of the garages to provide water for the garden. At the same time Ben started a multi-year project: the installation of an irrigation system for the garden. From the point of the city’s water meter, Ben ran some 600 feet of 1.5" pipe, buried 18" below grade, and some 3000´ of wire. We now have 9 points from which we can draw water, and 14 points where sprinkler systems will attach. The first two zones were installed in the Spring of 2009, along with a solar powered irrigation controller. While this project is certainly not the most noticeable project ever done in the garden, it is by far both the largest single project, and the most disruptive to the garden. Since many of the mainline pipes were run under the paths, we have taken the opportunity to gravel all but the newest paths in the garden. We love the new look, and wonder why we didn´t do it earlier.

We have developed a 2 page color brochure about the garden. Please feel free to  download the pdf, print it, and bring it with you. Copies are also available at the entrances to the public Garden.

We have been thrilled to work with the University of Washington Press in publishing our book about the Garden: In Love with a Hillside Garden and are very grateful to the Seattle Arboretum Foundation for their co-sponsoring of the book. We are pleased to announce that all the proceeds of the book are donated directly to the Arboretum Foundation. We hope you´ll pick up a copy today, either at the  Arboretum gift shop, online at the UW Press, or your local small book dealer. If all else fails, you can get it at the major bookstore chains and at online retails.