Combined Sewer Storm Water Systems may seem an unlikely topic for a landscape blog.  I believe an understanding of the way storm water and sewerage are disposed of in Seattle (through the same pipes), leads to an opportunity for home owners.  Water that runs off our streets and roofs into storm drains, it contains chemicals and bacteria.  Puget Sound cities often collect this water and route it to a combined sewer/storm water water treatment system before it is released into rivers or the Puget Sound.  During heavy storms in the Seattle area, the system becomes over loaded and untreated sewage flows into Lake Washington and Puget Sound.

Seattle has initiated a campaign to detach building downspouts from the water treatment system and, where suitable, divert the water into rain gardens and cisterns where it can infiltrate into the ground, or retained until the storm subsides.  This Seattle initiative creates an opportunity – homeowners may help protect our waterways and to enhance their landscape.

Starting in Ballard, but eventually extending to other catchments, Seattle Public Utilities is setting up a subsidy program to encourage homeowners to detach their downspouts and route storm water to cisterns and/or rain gardens in their yards.  These cisterns and rain gardens are ‘storm water treatment facilities’.  If you should decide to pursue this idea, and receive the subsidy, you will need to follow a relatively simple permitting process, commit to maintain the system for at least five years.   Lifestyle Landscapes is trained to the permitting and installation processes.  With our designers help, you will end up with a new rain garden and the knowledge you have helped clean up Puget Sound and Lake Washington.  In the long term, you will have increased the value of your property by enhancing its green credentials.

Irrespective of whether your home is eligible for this Seattle based program, installing a rain garden will enhance your property and improving the environment.

Baxter

I recently read an article in the September 2009 Landscape Architecture Magazine ‘Haag’s Edible Estate’.  For those of you who don’t know, Rich Haag founded the Landscape Architecture program at the University of Washington and has designed some very notable places including Gasworks Park here in Seattle and the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island.  This article looks at the landscape of his private residence in Capitol Hill, which is an active experiment and example of what he has coined ‘nutrimental horticulture’.  The term is a mouthful but the ideas behind it caught my attention immediately.

Balancing the utility of a food producing garden with a landscape that is also beautiful and welcoming is something that drives many of my designs, including my own gardens.  Gardens are about discovery and activating our many senses.  Showy flowers and an intoxicating smell are great but think of discovering your first ripe strawberry; this evokes a special reaction.  Why can’t all landscapes have this multi-sensorial experience? They can.

One plant that is very easy to utilize in a landscape are blueberries. They are tolerant of a wide range of soil and light conditions (err on the side of shady and moist) and beyond the berries, the leaves have great fall color, changing to a bright red as the plant goes dormant.

If you are looking to create an informal screen, try red raspberries.  They grow into 5-6′ canes which spread through rhizomes over time.  Raspberries can be perfect for obscuring a utility shed or a tall cedar fence.  Many varieties of raspberry will produce fruit multiple times throughout the summer.

Does your garden need a bulletproof ground cover?   Similar to the aforementioned strawberry plant (which is a must) creeping bramble (Rubus pentalobus) sprawls low to the ground and produces bright orange, raspberry-like fruit.

A great way to bring structure to the garden is a trellis.  Trellises allow plants, especially vines, to grow vertically and often with a dramatic result.  They can support garden variety vegetables like climbing beans and peas that can be grown throughout the year.  As an alternative try grape vines or better yet, hops.  This summer I grew hops (Cascade variety) for the first time. They quickly grew to about ten feet tall with pendulous clusters of yellow green hops, a surprisingly good turnout for the first year.  Hop plants grow from rhizomes that mature and increase in size over time producing more and more hops.

Lastly, an edible plant that makes both an architectural statement and is very sought after for its culinary uses, the artichoke.  This plant may not be for everyone but it is dramatic as a focal plant. Mature plants can grow to be 6-7′ feet tall with bold serrated fronds and large thistle flowers (the artichoke).  Tall and conspicuous, I see it as the Palm Tree of the garden.  Unlike the Palm, however, the artichoke is perennial and will die back in the fall to emerge in spring.

I will readily admit that I have had mixed results with some of these plants (especially the artichoke). To me the experiment is a part of the experience.  Try new things alongside successes of the past.  It is a great way to discover what works in your garden landscape.

Zach