SSC Arboretum Sensory Garden Design

Hand-drawn and colored

OVERVIEW
The South Seattle College Arboretum was established by the College and the South Seattle College Foundation in 1978, as the result of a petition by the Landscape Horticulture Program students for an arboretum to serve as their living laboratory. 

Students designed and built the 5-acre arboretum as part of their studies. It is used as a laboratory for courses in plant identification, arboriculture, pruning, irrigation, garden renovation, plant problem diagnostics, landscape management and landscape construction courses.

The Arboretum is ongoing renovations, and we were tasked to come up with a new design for the Sensory Garden as a group activity for the Capstone Planning and Design class. While designing a landscape as a group of four people had its challenges, it was an invaluable learning experience for everyone involved. We brainstormed several ideas and came up with a concept that will allow visitors to interact and engage with the garden in ways they hadn't before.

The new design, taking place in the Arboretum's old central fountain, will consist of three different areas: a central area with column sculptures, a small crevice garden, and an area to alight. The use of circles and curved lines dominates the design, to evoke softness and movement. The garden is designed to stimulate our senses by carefully selecting plants that rustle in the wind, have different colors, textures, fragrances, and have culinary properties. 

The plant palette consists of new plant specimens to continue to expand the vast existing collection, and replacement specimens of plants that are in current decline. The materials are locally sourced and consist of Gold Rush flagstone paths, Lynch Creek basalt rocks for the perimeter wall, Huckleberry benches and columns, and Cowboy Coffee quartzite for the crevice garden.