The East Ballard Community Association is starting to install large planters on the medians along 14th Avenue Northwest this week. But, Ballard resident Vivian Brady has been doing her part to beautify the street for the better part of the past eight years.

Brady started tending a small garden on the median end outside her apartment near the intersection of 14th Avenue and Northwest 62nd Street shortly after moving there because she didn't have a yard and it was open space.

"I'm a farmer from Montana," she said. "I have to dig in the dirt someplace."

Brady is modest about her small garden, and her daughter Lucy Brady jokes that it won't win any gardening awards because they can't tell the difference between the flowers and the weeds.

But, like the much larger East Ballard planter project, the point isn't necessarily the garden itself, it's the community it builds and improves.

Vivian said there are often car accidents on 14th Avenue, and she thought people might be more careful if they saw someone out there working.

She said her small garden helped her meet her neighbors, and people would often stop by while she was working to compliment her on her efforts or to pick a flower.

Lucy said there was even a thank-you card taped to they yield sign thanking her mother for making the spot look nice for the card-writer's walk to work.

The East Ballard Community Association is installing three city-donated planters on each median end along 14th Avenue between Northwest 59th Street and Northwest 63rd Street.

Lucy said the planters will hopefully make traffic along 14th Avenue safer so she doesn't have to worry about her mother working on such a dangerous street.

She said once the planters are installed, Vivian will be able to do maintenance on the waist-high pots instead of crouching all the way down.

Vivian said she doesn't care if they tear up her garden to install the planters. She has been digging up her garden and giving the plants away in preparation and said she can't wait to see how the planters turn out.

"They're really decorating Ballard up, aren't they?" she said.