Greenspace Blog Office of Sustainability & the Environment

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City of Seattle Blog

Water Saving Resources & Rebates

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Smart Water Guide coverWith all the cool weather lately, it can be easy to forget that Seattle summers are typically very hot and dry.  It makes sense to use smart watering practices in your yard to save water and money, since water rates are higher in the summer. And it helps the environment too, by causing less runoff of pesticides and fertilizers into waterways.

Check out the Smart Watering Guide and other information available on the Seattle Public Utilities site. If you’re interested in an automated sprinkler system, there are rebates available for those as well. Everyone wins when we water smart!

City of Seattle Community Grant Portal

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Have an idea to enhance your community? Need help with funding to make it happen? The City of Seattle may be able to help. It offers a wide variety of opportunities, including the Trees for Neighborhoods program, to support community projects. To make it convenient for community members to learn about its diverse funding programs, the city has created a web portal which can be found at www.seattle.gov/grants.

Opportunities are in six categories: youth; technology; community building and organizing; physical improvements; arts and culture; and the environment. Visitors can also search by the name of the city department and funding program(s), or can view all the programs side-by-side in an easy-to-read matrix format.

Ballard Edible Garden Tour

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Ballard’s 3rd annual edible garden tour takes place Saturday, June 25 from 10 am to 3 pm. Come get some inspiration for your home veggie garden. See examples of creative planting strips, containers, raised beds, fruit trees, berries, beehives, chicken coops and more! Visit a dozen gardens within walking distance and get a chance to talk to the gardeners.

Cost is $10, free for kids. Buy your ticket/map at the Ballard Community Center, 28th Ave NW/NW 60th Street starting at 10 am on event day.

Public meetings for University Heights Open Space

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Seattle Parks and Recreation and University Heights Center for the Community invite you to meet with the design team, HBB Landscape Architects, for the University Heights Open Space project. Parks will present design options for your new neighborhood park and wants to hear from you about the different designs.

First meeting is today, June 6, from 7-9 pm at University Heights Center for Community. Second meeting is July 11, same time and place. More information available at Parks’ website.

OSE Director at C40 Climate Summit

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Councilmember Mike O’Brien and Jill Simmons, Director of the Office of Sustainability and Environment, are representing Seattle at the C40 Summit in Sao Paulo.  The C40 Large Cities Climate Summit is a conference that brings together every two years mayors from all over the world to discuss actions and practices in combating climate change. It’s main goal is to deliver international cooperation between large cities to reduce greenhouse gas emission and to promote best practices between public and private institutions in tackling global warming.

CM OBrien presented on community engagement around climate change with New York and Tokyo. Jill Simmons is moderating a panel on district energy systems with Berlin, Copenhagen, Sydney and Warsaw.

More info:
C40 Sau Paulo Summit website
C40 Summit blog

Start watering your trees!

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Tree with green leaves

Photo by Jacob Moyer

It’s hard to believe, but the rain is letting up and hopefully our gorgeous summer is around the corner. While this is good news to people, it can be bad news to a young tree. Seattle’s hot, dry summers are hard on young trees. To make sure your young trees thrive through the summer, now is the time to start watering your tree at least once per week.

Your two best options are to use a watering bag or to use a hose on a low trickle for 30 minutes once a week. Both methods allow the water to filtrate deep into the soil where the trees’ roots can soak it up. You can find out more on the Seattle reLeaf site, plus a lot of other helpful information about caring for your trees.

Seattle Farm Bill Principles resolution

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On Monday, the Seattle City Council adopted resolution 31296, supporting the Seattle Farm Bill Principles as policy guidance to the Federal Government in the renewal of the 2012 Farm Bill.

The policies, programs and funding included in the 2012 Farm Bill will affect how successful Seattle can be in achieving its goal of strengthening the local and regional food system, improving the economy, and emergency preparedness.

For more information on Seattle’s Farm Bill Principles, including the regional partners and specific principles, please visit http://seattlefarmbillprinciples.org/.