Urban Landscape, Native Landscape: Gardening in Cascadia

Garden Advice
How to Make a Garden
How to Design a Perennial Garden
How to Design a Mixed Border
How to Design a Privacy Screen
How to Design a Thicket
How to Design a Bosque
How to Make a Townhome Garden
Low-Maintenance Gardening
How to Remove Lawn
How to Control Weeds
How to Use Botanical Latin
Why Gardens Fail

Plant Lists
Sun
Shrubs for Sun
Perennials for Sun
Groundcovers for Sun
Plants for Dry Sun
Trees
Shade
Shrubs for Shade
Perennials for Shade
Groundcovers for Shade
Dry Shade
Seasons
Fall Foliage & Flowers
Winter Flowers
Ornamental Fruits (Summer-Winter)
Regions
Western Washington Native Plants
Mediterranean Plants
Japanese Plants
Plant Families
Cupressaceae (Cypress Family)
Ericaceae (Heath Family)

Garden Designs
Japanese Garden
Shade Garden
Balcony
Washington Native Formal Shade Garden
Dryland Garden
Heathland Garden
Pacific Northwest Dry Forest Garden

Garden Themes
Why a Theme Garden?
Mediterranean Garden
Japanese Garden
Red Garden
Blue Garden
Yellow Garden
White Garden

Flower Colors
Pink Flowers
Purple Flowers
Orange Flowers

Bloom Times in Seattle
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

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.