The West Seattle Bee Garden is officially launched! As you’ll see in our video, Seattle Police motorcycle officers, the Sounders’ Sound Wave musicians, City Council President Sally Clark were part of the parade bringing the bees to the garden from West Seattle Elementary at midday today – along with lots of kids, from Roxhill Elementary as well as WSES:

(Photos by WSB’s Katie Meyer)
It was all part of a festival celebrating the start of the garden at High Point Commons Park, with a demonstration-beehive enclosure, a pollination garden, and more.

As with all of today’s big events, we have more photos of this one to add here later when this busy day calms down – check back!

ADDED 8:38 PM: As promised, more photos – starting with this one:

Viewing ensued after the beehives arrived in the back of the pickup truck seen at the end of our parade video, above. And then – on to their new home!

If you missed it in earlier stories, here’s the wide view of aforementioned new home:

Its exterior is full of information as well as places to view the bees:

And today proved there was no shortage of curiosity:

In addition to volunteer power, student effort has gone into the Bee Garden, too – including its mosaic welcome:

Still adding more!

ADDED MONDAY NIGHT: More views with the hives!

Yet more bee-honoring costumes:

Here’s Lauren with Krista Connor, West Seattle beekeeper:

More major bee fans:

Yet more West Seattle volunteers were hard at work today getting the West Seattle Bee Garden ready for its closeup – tomorrow is the West Seattle Bee Festival, including the parade from West Seattle Elementary to bring in the bees that will be living in the structure you see here. We visited two months ago when nothing more than timbers were standing in the Bee Garden’s spot at High Point Commons Park (Lanham/Graham), and now, tomorrow’s the big day, one year after Lauren Englund first went public here with her dream of a demonstration beehive to show people how vital honeybees are to our survival. The festival runs 11 am-3 pm tomorrow, including a picnic and various festivities in addition to the 11:30 am parade – which you can be part of, by the way, as explained here.

At the time of last year’s Furry Faces Foundation plant sale, F3 leader and plant-raiser Teri Ensley‘s house still had damage to fix from a fire a few months earlier. Now – as the 2013 plant sale begins – Teri is back in her house after rehab and repairs by Ventana Construction (WSB sponsor), work she is so proud of that she’s even incorporated Ventana’s name into the plant sale:

The shelving holding plants on the south side of Teri’s house is dubbed “Ventana Terrace” now, signage and all. Today is the first of four days of the sale – till 4 pm, then again tomorrow 10 am-4 pm, and the weekend of June 1-2, 3809 46th SW. It all started with more than 1,000 plants on “Ventana Terrace” and in the front yard, including herbs, perennials, annuals, vegetables, more – and the F3 “Tag Your Pet” campaign is happening there; read about it all in this WSB Forums post.

PAINT IT OUT: A new graffiti-fighting effort gets going today and volunteer power is vital. Meet at Youngstown Cultural Arts Center at 10 am. Here’s our preview with more details. (4408 Delridge Way SW)

‘PRESTO GARDEN’: Also previewed here earlier in the week, this Sustainable West Seattle-led project will create a garden growing fresh food for people served by the White Center Food Bank. Today from 1 pm to 5 pm, they would love your help at the planting party for the garden, which is at Westcrest Park. (From the park entrance at 8th and Henderson, head up the road to the right to the parking area; you’ll find the garden in the P-Patch next to the play area at the top of the hill.)

(Saturday photo courtesy West Seattle Bee Garden)
One year in the making, and one week remaining until the celebration of the new West Seattle Bee Garden, at next Sunday’s WS Bee Festival (May 19th). This weekend, writes Lauren Englund - whose dream, reported here in May 2012, started it all – the beehive enclosure is being finished, and you are welcome at a Sunday work party (starting at 10 am). And after that, it’s festival preparations. From Lauren:

For those who may not know, the High Point Neighborhood Association is hosting the West Seattle Bee Festival next Sunday, May 19th, to celebrate the opening of this space. It will include a picnic and parade! Here are some of the details:

Picnic Time: 11 am to 3 pm
Picnic Location: Commons Park at 31st Ave SW and SW Graham St
Parade Start: 11:30 am
Parade Start Location: West Seattle Elementary – 6760 34th Ave SW
Parade Route: North on 31st Ave SW from the WSE parking lot, across Morgan St, past the Bee Garden and into Commons Park. The total route is 0.5 miles.

Want to join the parade? Fantastic! Everyone is welcome. Set-up will ‘open’ at the West Seattle Elementary parking lot at 10:30 am. There will be face painting and an opportunity to make a flower for the parade. Look for a friendly face carrying a helium ballon for answers to questions. The Sound Wave marching band will be leading the way. Fun!

The picnic! Holy smokes some amazing people want to come hang out!

From kite makers, to bee art, to seeds from Vincent van Gogh’s grave … it will be there. The Tallboys will be serenading the festivities, and I’m stoked about sampling food from the awesome vendors who have agreed to come join. Loads of people are excited about celebrating community and education – amazing!

Want to help out? We would love to have you!
Set-up will begin at 9 am, and clean-up will begin at 3 pm. It’s a community effort :-)

We also have some special volunteer slots for anyone who would like to help us communicate the morning of the event – by wearing a sandwich board sign! Our neighbor Deb is spearheading this project. Here are the details; please feel free to contact Deb if interested:

Volunteer opportunity to support the Bee Garden on the day of the parade:
*Wear a “sandwich board”
*Stand on a street corner near the parade
*Wear a simple bee costume (optional)
*Wave and look happy
*Be prepared to answer simple questions like, “where is the parking?”
*Arrive at 9:30 am at Neighborhood House (6400 Sylvan Way) to get your sign and costume.
*Return costume to parade ground (West Seattle Elementary) at 11:00 so you can watch the parade
*Send an email to dvandermar@gmail.com if you have questions or if you want to be a bee with a sign!!

Title of the e-mail: “sandwich board volunteer.”

Find out more about the project at westseattlebeegarden.com – and see more photos on the Bee Garden’s Facebook page.

Remember the call for plant pots at Arbor Heights Elementary, for teacher Marcia Ingerslev and her farming first-graders – and the great response? The tomato plants – and some radishes too, we’re told – have been on sale after school this week and you’re welcome today as they sell plants one last time before Ms. Ingerslev has to haul the remainders off to be donated! The parent volunteer who shared the photo says it’s your chance to “be a proud new home to a grown-from-seed tomato plant (or radish) for a donation that goes fully to the farm program.” It’s a short sale window – about 3 pm to 3:30 pm, we’re told – but if you can make it over to Arbor Heights (37th and 104th), the plants await you, at a $2 donation each.

No word yet on any breakthrough in Wednesday morning’s arson at Longfellow Creek P-Patch in Westwood. But after a WSB commenter asked whether anything was needed to help the gardeners recover, we sought out an answer – and got it today from Minh Chau Le of the Department of Neighborhoods, who manages the community garden as part of the P-Patch program.

I was very pleasantly surprised to hear of the offers of help and support that came in, first via the posted comments of your readers and then via Lois Maag from DON, who has been fielding communications about the incident. It was so great to see that the types of community caring that we strive to foster within each P-Patch were coming to us from the greater community as well.

As reported by the Seattle Fire Department, the damages amount to around $500. The Longfellow Creek P-Patch, like every P-Patch throughout the city, is very much a community-driven effort. It currently does not have money or supplies readily on hand to replace the items lost. Should you continue to receive inquires from concerned neighbors who wish to help out in some way, please feel free to share this list of items that would be useful to the P-Patch as it begins the gardening season after having suffered the arson:

· 1 sturdy wheel barrow 3 cubic foot capacity or greater
· 1 Hori hori digging tool
· 2 digging shovels
· 2 digging forks
· Gift certificates in any amount to: Home Depot, TrueValue in the Junction, or McLendon’s Hardware.

The arson reward fund mentioned in the sign in our photo, by the way, does not involve public funds (we got a question about that too) – it’s from an insurance-company-supported foundation. If you have any information about who set this fire, call 800-55-ARSON. And if you have questions or other ideas about helping out, reach Chau via the P-Patch Program.

Story and photos by Keri DeTore
Reporting for West Seattle Blog

Sustainable West Seattle continued its “Successful Gardening with Nature” series Monday night with the second of three installments: “Designing the Perfect Garden.”

A walk-through of the Community Orchard of West Seattle included adding topsoil around existing fruit trees and planting seedlings that have been grown in South Seattle Community College’s greenhouse.

To demonstrate “companion planting” (placing plants that provide beneficial qualities within close proximity of each other) Stu Hennessey and Narcissa Nelson led forum attendees in a planting exercise.

Garlic and onion were placed around the fruit trees to repel voles with their odor, and other companion plants added included French Marigolds and vegetables from the Brassica family, including kale and broccoli, which also repel pests. A helpful chart to determine which plants make great companions can be found here.

An “Edible Yards and Structures” presentation by Stu Hennessey followed, providing members with information regarding starting an edible garden in the residential yard. Stu began by reflecting briefly on the tragic events of the day in Boston. He noted that when it comes to security — including food security, it’s not something we can take for granted. Food security is however, “something we can have control over.” This includes harvesting rainwater and creating your own compost, as well as edible gardening.

The big announcement of the evening was the winning site of the “Presto Garden” — an edible garden that will be built by Sustainable West Seattle Members in one day using lasagna gardening techniques and benefiting the community. The winning site is the Westcrest P-Patch in Westcrest Park. The garden will be tended by P-Patch members and produce from the Presto Garden will be donated to the White Center Food Bank.

Other upcoming events at the Community Orchard of West Seattle include Thursday’s Health & Harvest in the Orchard from 3-5 pm, and Explorer West Middle School’s Horsetail-pulling Contest on April 23rd.

The West Seattle Bee Garden is now five weeks away from its scheduled opening – with, as reported here last month, a parade and picnic to which the entire community is invited. Right now, it’s work party season: the photo above is from a blessing given during the first work party last weekend, at the Bee Garden’s site next to the P-Patch in High Point’s Commons Park. As Bee Garden instigator Lauren Englund noted, “We removed 3500 square feet of sod during the rainiest weekend on record at Sea-Tac since 1948! Woohoo!”

Lauren was planning to follow up on that work party by picking up the Bee Garden’s hives from Daniel Sullivan of Shipwreck Honey and procuring the bees from a beekeeper in Burien.

What’s also been happening is a revision of financial goals. Community donations are still very much appreciated, and what’s been received so far has enabled the project to reduce its fundraising goal – so it’s now a four-digit number instead of five. The IndieGoGo page for the project still shows the old goal rather than the reset $8,000; Lauren says they’re still looking to fund educational signs, beekeeping equipment, two additional locally built beehives with frames, a small solar panel, demonstration supplies, a webcam with wi-fi to place at the hive entrance, and refreshments for volunteers during ongoing work parties. You can help by contributing here; you can sign up for weekend work parties by going here; and you can also be part of the celebration May 19th, 11 am-3 pm – details here.

(Photo by WSB co-publisher Patrick Sand)
Yet another great example of generosity: We wrote on Thursday about the call for one-gallon plant-pot donations for the tomato-growing project in which Arbor Heights Elementary teacher Marcia Ingerslev and her students learn, teach, and share – and about an hour ago, that call was answered, big time! Our photo includes some of the donors as well as excited tomato-farming students. (We’ll be adding a few photos from parent volunteers who were there too – THANK YOU!)

Sustainable West Seattle is taking a new approach to its monthly member meetings by focusing on a particular theme each quarter. Last night kicked off this quarter’s “gardening with nature” theme with a focus on soils.

Due to our region’s glaciated geological history, our soils can be challenging to work in, and often take time, energy and amendments to create an environment where plants can thrive. Stu Hennessey (right) demonstrated the work that has been done at the Community Orchard of West Seattle – site of part of the meeting – to improve the soil, taking it from a compacted lawn to a healthy, nutrient-rich soil supporting edible plants and fruit trees. Much of the resulting produce will be shared with the Delridge Grocery, announced last night as one of three SWS Green Grant Recipients (we reported on the grant recipients here, before last night’s meeting was over).

The healthy soil was created using a method called “layering” which is also known as “lasagna gardening.”

It’s pretty much what it sounds like — laying layers of cardboard or burlap, leaves, manure, compost, grass cuttings, and other organic materials and allowing it all to biodegrade together creating a humus-rich soil on top of the more challenging soil. A handout was provided describing the different layers and their functions so members could begin this soil improvement practice at home.

More information on Lasagna Gardening can be found here: squidoo.com/lasagna-gardening-method

Attendees were further educated on soil improvement while watching the film “Permaculture Soils” by Geoff Lawton, which demonstrated the use of composting and mulching to enhance and enrich soils using natural materials as a more sustainable choice over stripping and fertilizing soils.

Upcoming Sustainable West Seattle workshops will focus on this natural-gardening theme, with the West Seattle Tool Library hosting a Fixers Collective this Thursday (March 21st) from 6 pm to 9 pm, offering local gardeners the opportunity to sharpen their tools and repair wheelbarrows.

Building on the gardening theme, April’s SWS meeting will focus on garden planning.

In May, the group will spend one day building a garden, what Stu Hennessey calls their “legacy,” in a yet-to-be-determined spot in the community. SWS is currently accepting nominations for a garden installation for a community group, school or church. To nominate a garden site, go to sustainablewestseattle.org and leave a comment. You can also watch Sustainable West Seattle’s website for more details on their next meeting, Monday, April 15th.

(Lauren Englund in photo from May 2012 WSB story)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

When we first introduced you to Lauren Englund in May of last year, she had an idea – saving honey bees through education, by setting up an educational/observational hive – and needed help to make the dream come true.

It’s a dream with an underpinning of urgency – without bees, our lives are at risk.

Now – after community meetings, and a blossoming group of helpers (including Christine Bartels, at left in our photo above with Lauren on the right) – the dream is close to reality, in the form of the West Seattle Bee Garden, set to launch next to the High Point Commons Park P-Patch with a parade this May.

Right now, though, the next stage needs even more help – and that’s where you come in.

Part of it involves crowdfunding, through an IndieGoGo campaign that’s under way, to augment the Department of Neighborhoods matching-fund grant that’s helping fuel the project, as well as rallying volunteers for upcoming work parties.

We talked with Lauren at the Bee Garden site one recent gray, chilly day. The bees’ future home was only timber in the ground, but she painted a bright picture of the pollination garden that will bloom in this area east of the future bee enclosure:

And she rhapsodized about the expected visits from students and community members finding out about bees’ crucial role in our ecosystem.

The framework that’s there now will house the bees’ home as well as observation areas and informational features. They might even have webcams so people can check in online. The entryway to the garden will have a two-sided mosaic.

The stars of the show of course will be the bees themselves, which will come from local beekeepers, will arrive in style, with a community parade. There will be two hives for starters – “local genes, local DNA, no chemicals, no pesticides.”

What the West Seattle Bee Garden needs right now is “dollars, and bodies,” says Lauren – help in the form of work-party participation in April and May, starting April 6th – sign up here – and donations to the IndieGoGo campaign – do that here. You can get in on pavers to be placed in the garden, at a certain donation level, as well as other contribution rewards, as is typical in the crowdfunding world. (Check them out on the right side of the IndieGogo page.)

The High Point Neighborhood Association is sponsoring the picnic and parade that will celebrate the bees’ arrival at 11 am May 19th – with a marching band leading the way! The bees will be marched in, in a sealed container, as part of a festival-like atmosphere – Lauren expects games, arts, crafts, even food trucks all around the park.

The festival is only the beginning – then, the first summer of bee-watching, bee-tending, pollination, and education will begin. Lauren hopes the West Seattle Bee Garden will teach people about pesticides, and how they affect bees (among other beneficial insects) – it’s not as simple as it seems when you grab a product off the shelf at a store. And it’ll be an opportunity for people to learn other things about bees – why they swarm, for example.

Nearby West Seattle Elementary is already involved in the project and other schools are welcome to join, she adds – including being part of the parade.

P.S. Here’s the plant list so far for the pollination garden; Lauren notes that it’s “specific to good pollinators for honey bees,” but they hope to incorporate plants that also are conducive to “butterflies, mason bees, hummingbirds, bumblebees, etc.”

Hellebore (late winter)
Crocus (late winter)
Witch Hazel (late winter)
Iris (spring)
Oregon Grape (spring)
Alpine Strawberry (spring)
Japanese Snowbell Tree (summer)
Chives (summer)
Lupine (summer)
Echinacea (summer)
Bee Balm (summer)
Black Eyed Susan (summer)
Geranium Sanguineum (summer)
Borage (summer)
Asters (late summer)

She hopes that eventually, there will be plants to bloom year-round. But again, it’s time now to jump in and help – work-party signups here, contributions here, and if you have questions or ideas – e-mail westseattlebeegarden@gmail.com, and check the website, which includes a photo gallery, FAQ, and updates.

(Photos courtesy Karrie Kohlhaas)
In the months ahead, rain gardens will be part of at least two government-led projects in West Seattle. A private project that’s already in place in North Delridge continues to draw interest – including a school field trip for which Karrie Kohlhaas was the neighborhood liaison today. She shared photos and this report:

This morning, Chief Sealth International High School brought 25 ninth-graders on a tour of the Rain Garden Demonstration Cluster on 25th Ave SW between Brandon and Findlay (10 rain gardens in the front yards of 10 neighbors on 25th).

The students have been learning about storm water and how it impacts the environment and nearby waterways. Students visited Longfellow Creek before walking 25th Avenue to learn about rain gardens for the first time.

I met with students and teachers to explain how a rain garden works and to show them the different types of plants in a rain garden. We talked about why someone might want to plant a rain garden — how it can both absorb excess water in the winter and be a low maintenance landscaping in the summer and most importantly how it filters toxic pollutants before the water makes its way to local waterways like nearby Longfellow Creek.

As expected, some of the students were more interested than others. I told them that this might not be so fascinating right now, but when they have a home one day, they may stop and think about planting a rain garden instead of grass, which is not beneficial to the environment. They are finding out about grass alternatives much earlier than I did. I only discovered rain gardens a couple years ago. I told them they are way ahead of the curve.

Since we installed 10 rain gardens on our block in 2011, we’ve had many visitors. Many gardeners, a local Muslim school, curious West Seattle and Delridge neighbors, and even people who heard about the project on NPR and PBS in other states have made our block part of their visit to Seattle. I’ve enjoyed spreading the word about rain gardens and the benefits to homeowners, the environment, and the community.

If anyone wants to come check out the gardens, they are welcome to walk the block. It’s a great example of neighbors and non-profits working together to improve the community. While here, you can also see the street improvement on our block, where we collaborated with SDOT and Stewardship Partners to augment a drainage solution in the street by adding, yep, more rain gardens as well as native plants in the planting strips up and down the block. This spring will be a great time to come and check it out when everything is blooming and budding.

Here’s a map to the neighborhood.

ADDED SATURDAY: Chief Sealth social-studies teacher Noah Zeichner tells WSB that this was one of 10 “field experiences” taken by ninth-graders on Friday as part of the multidisciplinary WEST Project (Water, Ecology, and Sustainability Team). The destinations also included:

• Renton Water Treatment
• Cedar River Water Shed
• Water 1st
• Seattle Biomed
• Duwamish Boat ride
• Solid Ground
• Rainier Urban Farms and Wetlands
• Urban Gardens with Composting
• Gates Foundation Visitor Center

Local and global water issues continue to be a focus at Sealth, and this year’s World Water Week is coming up – at which time, among many other activities, students will present their projects to students at adjacent Denny International Middle School. More on WWW coming up in another WSB story this weekend – meantime, here’s previous coverage, including a note about this year’s keynote address, to which the community’s invited.