Urban Landscape, Native Landscape: Rainier Valley Garden Tour

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Rainier Valley Garden Tour

Rainier Valley Garden Tour July 2010

Columbia City Station July 2010

Rainier Valley Garden Tour July 2010

Today I went on the Rainier Valley Garden Tour with a friend & my sister. It was really very entertaining. As always, it was a pleasure to walk around Columbia City. The Rainier Valley gardeners were very friendly. There were goats, dogs & lots of chickens. The tour was divided into 3 pods: Columbia Flats, Genesee & Othello. The Columbia Flats Pod was very accessible from the Columbia City Station. All of the gardens were between the station & the Columbia City business district on Rainier Avenue S. The Othello Pod (in Holly Park) was accessible from the Othello Station. Sorry Holly Park gardeners, but we skipped the Othello Pod. The Genesee Pod was in an ambiguous area, which can be part of Mt Baker or Columbia City, depending on whom you ask. We drove there. A hint to the garden tour organizers: it's a long way from any light rail station. Look for the Rainier Valley Garden Tour (formerly the Columbia City Garden Tour) next July.

1 comment:

Karen said...: I wish I'd been able to go to this. Thanks for the tour! I love that fancy chicken! Is it a Silver-Laced Polish hen?

I am ashamed to say I have yet to ride the light rail...; July 29, 2010 at 11:46 PM

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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.