Urban Landscape, Native Landscape: Summit Slope Park & Unpaving Paradise P-Patch

Friday, July 26, 2013

Summit Slope Park & Unpaving Paradise P-Patch

Summit Slope Park July 2012

Unpaving Paradise P-Patch July 2012

Unpaving Paradise P-Patch July 2012 with tool shed & alley behind

Unpaving Paradise P-Patch July 2012 with extra-long picnic table

Unpaving Paradise P-Patch is part of Summit Slope Park on the west slope of Capitol Hill in Seattle. This is a very densely populated area. The park & p-patch were created from a parking lot in 2010. The design & execution were excellent. This is among the nicest small parks in Seattle. When I first saw the site, it seemed odd to me to have a p-patch in an area with so much pedestrian & vehicular traffic. I thought vandalism would be rampant. But I haven't seen any obvious injury to the space & now I really love it. The largest part of the park is p-patch. There are also 2 small pieces of lawn, some basic landscaping, areas of pavement including stairs, a tool shed, 1 barbecue grill & possibly the longest picnic table in Seattle. There are 37 plots on land owned by the Seattle Department of Parks & Recreation. The entire park covers 1/5th of an acre at the corner Summit Avenue E & E John Street, right next to the E Olive Way business district. Click here to see more Seattle P-Patches.

1 comment:

Farryn said...: There's something beautiful about gardens in the midst of large, brick buildings. It's inspiring for community to come together. We're currently working on implementing a neighborhood gardening in our historic little neighborhood. It's nice to see others doing the same.; August 13, 2013 at 12:37 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.