Urban Landscape, Native Landscape: Waterfall Garden in Pioneer Square

Friday, June 18, 2010

Waterfall Garden in Pioneer Square

Waterfall Garden April 2010

The Waterfall Garden in Pioneer Square in Seattle is an amazing place, the finest artificial waterfall I've seen. The size of the waterfall & the amount of water that cascades over the basalt boulders seems barely contained by the tiny park. Yet there is room for tables, benches, planting beds & 2 small fountains. The space is covered on 2 sides by canopies, making it possible to sit, eat & watch the tumbling water while it rains! The Waterfall Garden was designed by Masahiro Kinoshita and completed in 1977. It was commissioned by James Casey, a founder of the United Parcel Service & funded by the Annie E Casey Foundation. The garden sits on the site of the 1907 birthplace of United Parcel Service at 2nd Avenue S & S Main Street, very near Occidental Park & the Klondike Museum. You can grab a sandwich from the Grand Central Bakery in the beautifully restored Grand Central Hotel at 1st Avenue S & S Main Street. Enter from Occidental Park. The Waterfall Garden, Klondike Museum & Grand Central Hotel (which also contains shops) together make a very satisfying excursion to Pioneer Square, an easy walk from Downtown Seattle.

1 comment:

Tatyana@MySecretGarden said...: It is great to have such a wonderful thing in a big city. The waterfall and the surrounding plants are beautiful. Great photo! Thanks!; June 20, 2010 at 9:31 AM

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About This Blog

This blog began in 2008 as Metropolitan Gardens to provide information on gardening in Seattle & places like it. Click on Gardening in Cascadia. The blog expanded to include Parks P-Patches Public Gardens in the US, Canada & Europe. Then Nature was added. (The difference between nature & gardens is intent. Nature happens. Gardens are planned.) Many recent posts are not about Seattle, or even Cascadia. They are Urban Landscape: streetscape & architecture. Cascadia is the region including the Cascade Mountains of Washington & Oregon. If you want to contact the blogger, leave a message in comments. Comments are moderated & private messages will not be posted.

Our Land & Climate

The city of Seattle rests between 2 bodies of water: Puget Sound & Lake Washington. Puget Sound is a substantial part of the Salish Sea & a very small part of the Pacific Ocean. The Salish Sea is set apart from the Pacific by the Olympic Peninsula in the state of Washington & Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia. The dense, wet clouds of the Pacific Ocean travel as far as the Cascade Mountains, near the Salish Sea & not very far from the ocean. East of the Cascades lies the desert of the Columbia Basin. The moist, temperate climate of Seattle extends south to northern California & north to southeastern Alaska. The Pacific Northwest Coast from San Francisco Bay to Cook Inlet shares a flora dominated by evergreen coniferous forest. The central portion, west of the Cascade Mountains, is called Cascadia. The climate is cool & wet from fall to spring, warm & dry in summer. The Olympic Mountains block Seattle from much of the Pacific rainfall. Seattle is drier than the Atlantic coast of North America & northern Europe, cooler in summer & warmer in winter. It lies near the latitude of Paris & Quebec City.