West Seattle Curiosities on the Way to the Garden

When driving to the Garden from downtown Seattle, I cross the West Seattle Bridge and take the Delridge Way exit.  Two distinct landmarks strike me every time I go.  The enormous American flag in front of the Waterfront Federal Credit Union building and the strange beguiling sculptures on the hill as you take a left on 23rd Avenue SW and head up to South Seattle Community College. The size of the billowing flag is impressive, but the crazy sculptures on the hillside are curious and entrancing.

Sculptures by Nicole Johnson

I finally stopped the car to find out who is creating these odd figures.  The artist is Nicole Johnson – unfortunately she was leaving just as I walked up her driveway to hear the story behind her work, so I'll have to discover more on that later...

Meanwhile, at the entrance to SSCC a flock of geese provided escort into the Garden, two of them running along beside me as I walked towards the group of volunteers planting bamboo on the small hillside behind the Discovery Center.

The soil was the toughest of clays and all sorts of tools were required to get the bamboo into the ground (a pickaxe?), but the intrepid volunteers who put in a full day's work managed to plant the groundcover bamboos (two truck loads of Sasarella romosa and Pleioblastus pygmaeus donated by Bamboo Gardens of Washington). One of the volunteers was Eng Heng, who is also known as the bamboo expert in his neighborhood (see Bamboo Curtain House Man).

Volunteers John Sammons, Eng Heng, Phil Woods, and Andrea Jensen (not pictured is Bucky Farquahar)

The bamboo, once established, will loosen that tough soil on the banks and provide a good screen in front of the temporary chain link fencing.  For a brief moment, the sun peaked out and gave us a last glimpse of the colorful foliage of Seattle's brief fall season. Another striking image to carry home after a hard day's work...