COURTESY OF THE BERGER PARTNERSHIP, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
Water will move from a cobbled cone through a channel and across this textured surface in a four-part water feature at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill. The acre-size water feature is one of the more spectacular elements being added to Seattle's outdoor living rooms, thanks to the Pro Parks Levy.

AS GARDENERS, we can't help but judge a park by its plants. Which one of us doesn't check out the variety of trees and health of the shrubbery in every park we visit? So I've been wondering about the progress Seattle's Pro Parks Levy has made toward greening up our city's outdoor living rooms. Seattle is halfway through spending the $198.2 million levy we voted for in 2000. An impressive 95 projects are completed or under way, including new parks as well as renovations and expansions of older ones from the northwest corner to the southeast tip of the city. The whole ambitious initiative should finish up in 2008.

I cornered Michael Shiosaki, the planning and development manager of the Pro Parks Levy. This is one busy man, involved in all 95 projects. Low-key, affable and full of facts, he couldn't help but start by enthusing over the nearly completed Cal Anderson Park. Built partly on a lid over the old Lincoln Reservoir on Capitol Hill, the park has four acres devoted to ballfields, passive green space and a building for the community. Most spectacular is an acre-sized four-part water feature with a huge volume of water spilling from a cobbled cone into a channel, across a textured surface and into a larger reflecting pool.

A schematic of the four-acre Cal Anderson Park, built partly on a lid over the old Lincoln Reservoir, shows green spaces, ballfields and water features.

I try not to be distracted by such theatrics as gushing cones and turn the conversation back to gardens in the parks. Shiosaki points out the concentration of horticultural activity taking place in the first phase of the Washington Park Arboretum's master plan. The Portico Group has just finished the schematic for the new Madrona Terrace, a 12-acre project at the south entry of the Arboretum. A series of eco-geographic exhibits will feature plants from around the world well adapted to our climate. Visitors will be immersed in plants from New Zealand, Chile, Australia and Asia, all worked into the existing matrix of trees for which the Arboretum is beloved.

Also horticulturally intense will be the new South Lake Union Park. A complex design of native plantings along the shoreline will soften the expanses of lawn and hardscape designed to serve as gathering places. Shiosaki notes that much of the actual gardening in the parks now takes place in P-patches and community gardens, which are far more integral to our parks than they used to be. Lincoln Park has a new area devoted to P-patches, and some of the Pro Parks money went toward the eco-friendly building and other improvements at Bradner Gardens.

ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL SCHMID /THE SEATTLE TIMES
			Now In Bloom A handsome new little shrub is in nurseries this spring, the Hebe 'Silver Dollar,' which is a color scheme all to itself. Variegated gray-green leaves tinged strongly pink in winter and spring are perfect to echo plantings in purple, pink or silver. While the shade fades later in the season, it's replaced by pink flowers. Because the leaves are evergreen and the plant grows into a compact mound only about a foot high, it's ideal for pots or edging.

Shiosaki is a landscape architect and very aware of the maintenance issues involved in park plantings. He makes sure maintenance is considered up front and gets equal weight with design considerations. "The biggest challenges in creating new parks are water worries and keeping them low-maintenance," he says. A goal of the fund-raising plan for the Arboretum's Madrona Terrace is an endowment for maintenance.

With so many parks in the works, Shiosaki is always looking toward the next project. Still to come is the Uptown Park on Lower Queen Anne, where a busy corner is seriously in need of a little green.

Shiosaki's goal is to make all the Pro Parks projects so ably designed, built and maintained that the citizens see their money has been well spent. He figures that's the best way to assure we all step up again in the future to improve Seattle's parks.

Between now and the end of the year, a new Pro Parks project will open nearly every week. To learn more about what is happening in your neighborhood and throughout the city, go to www.cityofseattle.net/parks/proparks/ or call David Takami, Pro Parks Programs, at 206-684-8020.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle free-lance writer and contributing editor for Horticulture magazine. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.