Shannon, Dawn and Erin admiring the beauty of East Ballard

During our walking tour a couple weeks back during our stop at the intersection improvement at 14th Ave NW and NW 58th, Shannon talked a little bit about the East Ballard Branding and Beautification Project. This concept is in its infancy right now, but the gist of this project is to come up with a way to identify East Ballard and to provide a way for  businesses and neighbors to show their pride in the neighborhood and that they’re active participants in the East Ballard neighborhood. We’ve found that one of the easiest and most noticeable ways of achieving this goal is through plants. When it came time to do some planting on 14th, Shannon ran with this great idea and came up with a plant list that includes drought tolerant, and mostly native plants, that provide complementary color and movement. Since these plants were going into a planting strip near an intersection, we also made sure they don’t grow too tall. This planting strip is now our demonstration garden for our beautification and branding project. We’re also working right now to obtain some planters from the city to install in the medians on 14th. Once we get them installed, we’ll be putting them up for adoption to neighbors interested in planting and maintaining them.

In the meantime, I’ve received several requests from neighbors and businesses who want to get started on showing their East Ballard pride by adding some or all of these plants to their garden or installing planters outside of their businesses. These plants would also work wonderfully in a traffic circle!  Note, many of these plants were readily available in early Spring when we planted on 14th, but may not be as readily available today. If you choose to do an East Ballard planting, make sure to send me pics so I can post them to our site!

East Ballard Branding and Beautification Plant List
Sedum spurium “Blaze of Fulda” – evergreen – sun – 4″ tall  12″-18″ wide
Heuchera “Coral Bells” – perennial – sun/part shade – 18″-24″ tall 12″-15″ wide
Elk’s Blue Rush – evergreen – sun/part shade – 18″-24″ tall 24″-36″ wide
Phormium “Flamingo” – evergreen – sun – 1′-2′ tall 1′-2′ wide
Carex morrowii “Japanese Sedge” – evergreen – sun/part shade
Iris – I don’t exactly what type. The blooms are  small and white
Fragaria chiloensis “Native beach strawberry” – drought tolerant groundcover