Jacqueline Houston is a member of the Wedgwood Garden Club, and also a Master Gardener of King County. She has been gardening in Seattle for over 30 years, and now has a garden consulting/coaching business called Enchanted Garden Consulting. Wedgwood Garden Club always welcomes new members – contact Jacqueline at tppoems@comcast.net for more information on our monthly meetings.
Dame’s rocket
Many of you know that the large lot on the corner of 35th Ave NE and NE 86th St is the designated site of a future ‘pocket park’, which was originally going in before COVID, then got delayed. 2026 was supposedly the year it was to be finally installed. The city even took soil samples! Wedgwood’s guerilla gardeners, who had planted a pollinator garden, a bed of annuals, and tomato plants, all stepped back and stopped tending their plots in the expectation of imminent bulldozers.
Then nothing happened.
It now looks like nothing will continue to happen for the rest of 2026 and most of 2027, though something might supposedly happen in late 2027 (which sounds like 2028 to me).
As the main planter of the pollinator garden, I had carefully dug out many of the plants in the early winter of 2026, and potted them up for future use elsewhere. Since then I had not visited, tended or watered the strip of garden as I was expecting immediate demolition. But last week I went back to see what was left, and to plan some more plantings for the Fall, and I was incredibly impressed by the plants that had survived, and flowered, and filled in the spaces, even though in full sun, horrible soil and with no water.
Chief of these is dame’s rocket (hesperis matronalis), which would have gone on flowering much longer if I had been pruning it now and then. Phlomis russeliana looks as green and healthy as the day I planted it. Valerian (Jupiter’s Beard) is still putting out its red/pink flowers, as is Persicaria ‘Firetail’ (both of these would also have made more flowers with a bit of light deadheading). Yellow and orange calendulas are still bringing color and cheerfulness to the strip, as is Goldenrod ‘Fireworks’. Rose campion clearly flowered well but is over now. And I am sure my giant clump of hollyhocks would still have been flowering away if I hadn’t ‘rescued’ it in early winter – they are extremely drought-tolerant, and have seeded some new volunteers in their old spot.
I have learned from this experiment in utter neglect, and won’t return some of the more thirsty plants to this plot. And I am saving this list of tough old survivors for future use. I should note that all these plants were well-established after two years in place, though as I say, the place consisted of horrible soil, no water, and asphalt not far beneath them.