UPDATE MAY 30

Highline Garden Tour
Saturday, June 9, 2012 1
10 AM - 5 PM

The Highline Historical Society has hosted the Garden Tour since 2005," said Cindy Upthegrove, the Historical Society Director and Burien resident. "We collaborate with the Sea-Tac Highline Botanical Garden every year. We have seven locations, including the botanic garden. One location will offer a series of rain gardens. We're featuring rain gardens because that's the new thing in sustainability, keeping pollutants out of Puget Sound. There are probably 40 volunteers working on this.

"They will find pottery and plants and other thing for sale," she said. "Every place where you stop has some feature to it that is in addition to a lovely garden. The gardens are generally very, very nice. I'm not a gardener and I can take this tour and have an excellent day."

Included on the tour is the half-acre Normandy Park property of John and Dana Lassell. Her handmade sculptural pottery, which is for sale, will be placed in and around the garden.

"Most of the fencing boards you will see were salvaged from the third runway project from the houses they were going to bulldoze," Dana said. Also, mature hydrangeas, azaleas and rhododendrons were rescued from the yards of those houses. The brick was also salvaged from the third runway, and from two West Seattle chimneys."

She and John, a professional home inspector, salvaged an old GMC truck which is "parked" among greenery with plants emerging through a large hole in its weathered hood.

"My dad, Richard McMullin, used to buy and fix up classic cars," she said. "He hadn't gotten to a truck, so we got the 53 pick-up truck for his memory garden."

Proceeds go to the Highline Historical Society, which has plans for a new 14,900 sq. ft. museum located on prime property they own, on the corner of Ambaum Boulevard SW and SW 152nd Street in Burien.

Highline Garden Tour Tickets Going On Sale

Tickets for the 2012 Highline Garden Tour are now on sale. This much-anticipated annual event, which takes place Saturday, June 9, allows participants to visit beautiful gardens in Burien, Normandy Park, and SeaTac.

A special feature of the tour this year will be the chance to talk in-depth with the Seahurst neighbors who recently joined forces to install a cluster of rain gardens up and down their street. They did this under the auspices of 12,000 Rain Gardens, a region-wide campaign that is working to reduce polluted stormwater run-off into Puget Sound and other local waterways. Spearheaded by Washington State University Extension and the non-profit conservation organization Stewardship Partners, the campaign hopes to install 12,000 rain gardens throughout the Puget Sound region by 2016.

Ticket holders on the self-guided Highline Garden Tour also will encounter plein air artists at work in many of the gardens, as well as the opportunity to enjoy the private garden of popular local ceramic artist Dana Lassell and to purchase her works.

Other tour features include a plant sale at the Highline-SeaTac Botanical Garden, discount coupons for a grab-and-go lunch special at Grand Central Bakery and for beverages at The Bean, and a drawing for a $100 gift certificate from Herr Backyard Garden Center. Event sponsorship support comes from John L. Scott realtor Susan Plecko, Discover Burien, Rodda and Sons Landscaping, and Burien Bark.

Advance tickets for the Highline Garden Tour are only $15, with group rates of $12 per person if bought in groups of four or more. Tickets will be $18 on the day of the tour. Tickets can be purchased in person at Herr Backyard Garden Center, 107 SW 160th Street and Burien Bark, 13258 1st Avenue S, or over the phone by calling 206-241-5786.

For more information about the Highline Garden Tour and about the Highline Historical Society, visit: www.highlinehistory.org.