Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden (3
acres)
Location:
SeaTac Community Center
13735 24th Avenue South, SeaTac
The
Highline
SeaTac
Botanical Garden
is comprised of 10.5 acres of display gardens, woodlands, and trails.
Highlights of the currently developed 3 acres include the recently
relocated Seike Japanese Garden, "Elda Behm's Paradise
Garden", and display gardens planted and maintained by the King
County Iris Society, Puget Sound Daylily Club and Seattle Rose
Society.
Many of the garden’s plants were salvaged from
land bought as part of the expansion of
Seattle-Tacoma
International
Airport
. As you enter the garden, the 1-acre
Elda
Behm
Paradise
Garden
nestles up against a forest on the right. A recirculating stream flows
through a 100 foot long series of waterfalls before emptying into a
7,000 gallon pond. Sunny borders are packed with a bewildering variety
of
Elda
’s favorites, and 10,000-square-foot shade garden is cloaked in a
canopy of alders and madronas.
Continue east from the entrance and you’ll
find gardens of maintained by the King County Iris Society and the
Puget Sound Daylily Club, and a formal rose
garden maintained by the Seattle Rose
Society featuring over 100 labeled roses. Weddings are held on the
central lawn area within the rose beds.
On the easternmost side of the gardens is the
recently relocated
Seike
Japanese
Garden
, built in 1961 partly as a memorial to a son fallen in World War II.
A consultant from
Japan
designed the garden — a classic "pond-and-mountain" style
— and oversaw its construction with the Seike family, who owned the
Des Moines Way Nursery for more than 55 years.
A new Sensory Garden, designed to be accessible to seniors and
the disabled, adjoins the Community Center.
For more details and for the history of
the Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden visit the Highline
SeaTac Botanical Garden website.
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