Native Garden Welcomes Students Back to School

As staff and students return to campus after the summer break, they will be welcomed by a newly installed native garden at the main entrance of the school. In alignment with the Explorer West’s Sustainability Program, the garden is designed to represent indigenous landscapes of the Pacific Northwest with small vignettes of local plants that can be found in the forest, mountains and coast. Since the garden is small, many dwarf versions of plants were chosen not to overwhelm the space. There is a mix of both rare and usual native plants that will pop up at different times of the year, so that the look of the garden will always be changing. One of the more unusual and rare plants found in the garden is a taxus brevifolia, which is small evergreen tree that is used to make the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel (Taxol).

The garden was specifically designed to be used and explored by students, families and visitors. There are paths throughout so students can cut through or use the main sidewalks. In addition, there is a seating area under one of the bigger trees.

The landscape architect chosen to do the project, Kate Farley, is a specialist in gardening with native plants that are drought tolerant and low maintenance. She is also working with the West Seattle P-Patch. Kate plans to partner with Explorer West teachers to label the plantings to share their Latin meanings and how many of them are used in Native American cultures. She also hopes to incorporate natural artifacts such as nurse logs and additional plants with the students later in the year. We hope that everyone enjoys this new urban oasis at Explorer West.

To see more of Kate’s landscape work, please check out her web site. http://katefarley.com.