Tukwila Pond Park

Tukwila Pond October 2010

Arbutus menziesii bark at Tukwila Pond Park October 2010

Arbutus menziesii fruit at Tukwila Pond Park October 2010

Pseudotsuga menziesii cone at Tukwila Pond Park October 2010

Rosa gymnocarpa hip at Tukwila Pond Park October 2010

Tukwila Pond October 2010 

 Tukwila Pond October 2010


I found Tukwila Pond Park on the web.  I don’t know how that happened, because there is very little information about it there.  However, I learned that the pond was behind the Target store, just across from Westfield Southcenter shopping mall.  After that, I saw the sign every time I drove on Strander Blvd.  I would tell myself that one day I would stop.  Years passed as I imagined a tiny pothole lined with cattails.  When I finally visited the pond in October of 2010, I was amazed.  Tukwila Pond is huge.  The park covers 25 acres.  The pond is lined with cottonwood trees (Populus balsamifera ssp. trichocarpa) so that very few of the surrounding retail & industiral buildings are visible.  2 spacious viewing platforms extend into the pond.  There is enough land on the western shore for a pavilion with restrooms, shelter & information about the park.  Picnic tables are spread thoughout the area.  The very brief description at the City of Tukwila website says that the park was financed & organized by volunteers.  This strengthens my feeling that the Tukwila Pond is the step-child of the Tukwila parks system.  The path from Strander Blvd has been covered by the edge of an asphalt parking lot.  No parking is provided. (You can park in the Target lot.)  An attempt was made to plant native species.  But these are mixed with a hodgepodge of uninspired, older plantings.  Even so, the pond is an amazing & beautiful work of nature.  It formed in a low-lying area when water began to run off from the hard surfaces of buildings, streets & parking lots that replaced farmland starting in the 1950s.