Ecological Design Guides Demo Garden Renovation

By Katie Pencke
Demonstration Garden Coordinator

Our Demonstration Garden at the Good Shepherd Center was a busy place last winter, and this summer we are reaping the rewards.

In order to meet our educational goals to demonstrate organic food gardening, biodiversity, and yard and food waste composting in the city, the volunteer Garden Intern Crew tackled a shrub bed renovation and garden reorganization that included composting changes and rainwater management.

New Species in Shrub Bed

This spring we planted over 100 new species into the garden’s renovated shrub beds. The new bed arrangement reflects recommendations from landscape architect and former board member Nicole Kistler, which she developed after coordinating a community design process in 2007.

We solicited the support of regional growers for the project, and were rewarded with plant donations from eight different nursery operations, worth an estimated $2,500.

In particular, we received incredible support from Ray and Peg Prag, co-owners of Forestfarms Nursery in Williams, Ore.

Not only did they donate more than $1,000 worth of plants, but Ray drove the donation from near the California border to Salem, and picked up another grower’s donation along the way. Another volunteer, Russ Hanby, helped us immensely by traveling to Salem and bringing the large donation home to Seattle.

Along with the new plantings, we also revamped our composting area and planted a rain garden.

Separating Compost Areas for Rodent Control

We concentrated all food waste composting demonstrations outside the west door of the greenhouse, and yard waste compost demonstrations in the northwest corner of the garden. This spatial arrangement will help to reinforce the important concept that food and yard wastes must be composted in very different ways in the city, in order to avoid attracting rodent populations.

Some of the work reflects our educational strategies for conserving and recycling resources in our landscape and neighborhoods.

For instance, we are demonstrating techniques for harnessing the sun’s heating potential with passive solar design, and rainwater harvesting with cisterns, rain gardens, green roofs, swales and berms.

As part of these demonstrations, we installed a rain garden in our demonstration garden.

Rain Garden Replaces Dry Well

A rain garden is a planted, compost-rich depression that corresponds to the size of an adjacent roof or other impermeable surface. The new rain garden, which is very visible right along our main path next to the greenhouse, replaces a dry well, which is a depression filled with rubble, adjacent to our impermeable main path. Current best practices for rain water infiltration are to use a rain garden instead of dry wells.

Partners in our rain garden installation were Stewardship Partners and the WSU Native Plant Salvage Project.

Stop by the garden to see our newly renovated composting area and shrub bed, and our new rain garden.