Estelle Street P-Patch

Estelle Street P-Patch June 2012

Storm drain, Estelle Street P-Patch June 2012

Foxglove, Estelle Street P-Patch June 2012

Furniture, Estelle Street P-Patch June 2012

Treillage, Estelle Street P-Patch June 2012 

The Estelle Street P-Patch is located in the Mt Baker neighborhood in southeast Seattle.  It lies at the eastern end of S Estelle Street, which does little more than cross Rainier Avenue S, making it one of the shortest streets in Seattle.  The p-patch takes up the Seattle Department of Transportation right-of-way, a low slope that might have connected S Estelle Street to S Hinds Street, had it been paved for vehicular traffic.  An asphalt path lined with blackberry brambles existed here before the p-patch was created in 1990.  This garden is somewhat chaotic, with 23 plots of different sizes & shapes, most of them contained by charmingly ramshackle fences & furnished with recycled items, on 6,000 square feet.  This is in marked contrast to its orderly neighbor, the Courtland Place P-Patch, a short walk away.  S Estelle Street sits in a very low-lying area of the Rainier Valley.  The elevated storm drains are a reminder of the time when Wetmore Slough flowed through the lower part of this garden on its way from the vicinity of Rainier Avenue S & S Dearborn Street to S Genessee Street, where it emptied into Lake Washington through what is now Genessee Park.  The slough was mostly drained when Lake Washington was lowered by 20 feet, as part of the Lake Washington Ship Canal project, in 1917.  Click here to see more Seattle P-Patches.