What's Blooming At SUN Pocket Park Near Laurelhurst Elementary School

Nootka Roses

 

 

 

Rose Hips


 

 

The SUN Park Team, which oversee the upkeep of the small corner pocket park located at the corner of NE 47th Street and 47th Avenue NE, would like to highlight some of the plants neighbors can find there and currently blooming.
 The SUN Park Team told the Laurelhurst Blog Staff:

Wild Roses (R nutkana) or Nootka Roses are commonly found throughout the Pacific Northwest, and at SUN Park.

The Nootka Rose is in full bloom in the late spring and early summer. The rose shrub has thorny stems and stems with five to seven small leaves (leaflets); they look very similar to cultivated garden roses. Flowers are single petals of pale to bright pink with a yellow center.

The rose hips mature in the autumn and are red to orange in color. They have a fleshy outside and white seeds in the middle.

Pacific Northwest native tribes occasionally ate wild rose hips raw as well as the tender spring shoots, believing they imparted a sweet breath. Some tribes dried the hips before eating or boiling them for medicines such as a remedy for a sore
throat or as an eyewash. Other tribes believed that bathing a baby in water in which rose leaves had been boiled would make the baby strong. Current settlers
of the Pacific Northwest appreciate the high vitamin C content of rose hips and
prepare tea from the dried hips.

The SUN Park location, planned, funded, developed, and maintained by Laurelhurst neighbors, was originally part of the site of a large 1920's Bungalow style house.   A developer purchased the property, demolished the home, then divided the original lot into three parcels.  Two houses were built on the subdivided lots.

In 2007, the Sun Park group, along with many in the community, attended a meeting along with City representatives, to save the third parcel, on the corner, from being developed.

The plot of land was purchased by a group of Laurelhurst neighbors and friends, through donations to the Cascade Land Conservancy (now Forterra, a nonprofit 501.c.3 organization whose mission is to conserve great lands and create great communities) in order to preserve the small open space from development and create a community park and native plant garden.  

In 2009, SUN Park, named for Saving Urban Nature, was finished and was completely funded by private donations.

The Friends of SUN Park maintain the plantings which include a variety of trees, shrubs, ferns, perennials, and groundcovers native to Western Washington. Identification markers provide information on the plants and "the ways in which their use represented the
first ‘grocery store’ and ‘pharmacy’ for local Native American cultures," a volunteer told the Laurelhurst Blog Staff.
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One of the Friends Of SUN Park gardening volunteers added:

SUN Park serves as a demonstration site for those interested in growing native
plants and learning more about the plants indigenous to the region. Gardening
with these plants creates a more nature landscape, promotes wildlife habitats,
and requires less maintenance.

   

SUN’s Weed and Sweep Brigade work parties are held the second Saturday of each month at 10am.

 

"Stop by with your favorite garden tool to keep the park in shape," a volunteer told the Laurelhurst Blog.

To support SUN Park, contact Dixie Porter at dixiejoporter@hotmail.com or 206-383-0147  or Janice Camp at 206-849-5778.

Enjoy "great nature nearby" one of the volunteers told the Laurelhurst Blog.

Go here for more information.

 

 

 

SUN Park