Demonstration Gardens in King County

The Master Gardeners of King County maintain ten demonstration gardens, three youth gardens and one outreach garden. In each of these gardens, the community can see firsthand the types of plants that grow well in our area and learn recommended planting practices and overall garden care. Visitors can also enjoy each garden’s unique beauty and large variety of plants. Old favorites grow alongside new experimental varieties. Find the locations of all the gardens on the page King County Master Gardeners map.

In addition to MGFKC demonstration gardens, we have included a list of the public gardens in King County and the surrounding area that we encourage you to visit to inspire, inform, and excite you about the beauty of plants for your gardens and their many medicinal, cultural and edible characteristics.

Located in the Pfingst Animal Acres Park, at NE 178th St and Brookside Boulevard, south of the intersection.

This small garden is located within a popular city park. The garden features fruit, vegetables, herbs, and perennials interplanted to show the public how to integrate ornamentals with food crops. The garden also features a simple drip irrigation system, making it a low-maintenance garden as well. Produce is donated to POPY’s Café at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Shoreline.

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Located on SE 16th Street between 148th Avenue SE and 156th Avenue SE, just west of 156^th.

This urban demonstration garden has grown from a single P-Patch surrounded by blackberries on a steep, rock-filled slope to the flourishing garden it is today. The hands-on garden is an effective way for Master Gardeners to demonstrate gardening techniques to the community. The garden includes ornamental theme beds, a Northwest cactus garden, a children’s garden, vegetable gardens and more.

Read more: January 2016 issue of The Connection.

 Find out more: Bellevue Demonstration Garden

Located at El Centro de La Raza, 2524 16th Avenue S, Seattle.

The Master Gardeners have been working at this site since 1985. The garden serves to educate the diverse local community, including students from El Centro, on all aspects related to sustainable and organic gardening. The garden includes raised vegetable beds, composting, a kitchen herb garden, berries and fruit trees, and a greenhouse for seed starting. Master Gardeners also help to maintain the El Centro grounds which include a rain garden and perennial beds. Food raised in the garden is provided to the El Centro food bank.

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Located within Carkeek Park at 950 NW Carkeek Park Road, Seattle.

The Carkeek Demonstration Gardens surround the educational buildings at Carkeek Park (the Environmental Learning Center and the Annex). The multiple and varied gardens are 20-plus years old and represent the original plan to inform and inspire backyard gardeners to practice natural and wildlife habitat principles. These twelve separate but related gardens, from the Shady Woodlands Garden to the Prairie Garden, show visitors the wide variety of plants that thrive in PNW gardens without fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, or supplemental water. The Gardens support the migratory bird populations by utilizing plants that provide food, shelter, and nesting materials year-round.

Located on the grounds of St. John Vianney Catholic Church located at 12600 84th Ave NE in Kirkland, WA 98034.

This garden is currently under development, and the public are invited to visit during daylight hours to view our progress. Master Gardeners are on site each Tuesday from 9 am – 11 am from April through October.

Follow the progress of this new garden in recent issues of The Connection newsletter: October 2020, April 2021, July 2021, August 2021 and October 2021.

Located at 5311 South 237th Place, Kent.

The David F. Neely House is a historic landmark. The home was built in 1885, and the plant material for this garden is historically appropriate. The design features perennials, roses, herbs, grapes, hops, and vegetables.

Located at 29308 133^rd Avenue SE, Auburn.

This garden is part of the Soos Creek Botanical Garden which is open to the public March through early November, Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Master Gardeners maintain the vegetable garden and are available as educators to the visiting public. Garden produce is donated to the Auburn food bank.

Located at 2853 NW 58th Street in Ballard, Seattle.

Thyme Patch Park is a display garden on a city lot neighborhood park located in Ballard. Part of the Seattle Park System, the Park features 14 P-Patch plots on the south half and a landscaped display garden maintained by Master Gardeners on the north half. After two years of planning, in January 2003 Master Gardeners began building the planting design for their landscaped portion of the Park. The purpose of the garden is to integrate educational aspects of home garden design, plant selection, pruning and maintenance in a home-like landscape, highlighting those plants found in the neighborhoods of Seattle.

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Located at the Lake Wilderness Arboretum, 22520 SE 248th Street, Maple Valley.

The Tribal Life Trail is a trail-style demonstration garden that focuses on plants used by native peoples of the Pacific Northwest. It is designed to provide an educational platform and understanding of the foods, medicines, and many other practical functions derived from these plants by native peoples. The trail is approximately 270 feet long and meanders in and out of the forest edge along the arboretum meadow. Informational signage identifies plants and their traditional uses.

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Located at Sunrise Ridge, 10030 SW 210th Street, Vashon Island.

This garden was designated as a Master Gardener demonstration garden in 2017 and now has 17 beds for planting plus a hoop house. The gardeners work in concert with the food bank volunteer coordinator to schedule work parties to clear and weed the gardens, install the drip irrigation systems, plant the vegetable seeds and starts from local organic gardeners and care for and harvest the food. Please note: The garden is open to the public during the daylight times and can be accessed through a latched gate. If you visit, please make sure the gate is closed and latched due to the problem of deer.

Located at 5130 40^th Avenue NE, Seattle.

Master Gardeners began this outreach garden project in the fall of 2005. There are two locations, a block apart, each with gardens. The older house had overgrown landscaping originally planted in 1983. The gardens at the newer houses were established in 2003. Master Gardeners have renewed and renovated established areas and created a number of individual focus gardens including two vegetable gardens, a giant pumpkin patch, a shade garden, a drought tolerant garden, a sun loving garden to provide brilliant colors and attract pollinators, and a patio garden. We have placed signage in individual gardens to invite people to pause to enjoy the plants and ask us questions.

Located behind the Magnuson Park Brig building, at 6344 NE 74th St, Seattle.

This garden has been created with ideas from the hearts and minds of local children and their parents, beginning in 2001.  Those ideas were put together in a design for a 1/4-acre site by the Children’s Garden Committee, a volunteer team of MGs and other horticultural experts.  The committee manages the garden, guides community volunteers and organizations in stewardship events and major projects and hosts free family programs from spring to fall.  Over the past 18 years, the garden has grown into a local treasure, filled with delightful features such as a life-size Grey Whale Garden, spiral paths that lead up to a Lookout and a Rolling Hill, a Starfish Garden, Willow House, Salmon Survival Path, Pollinator Garden, and much more.

Read more: November 2015 issue of The Connection. Find out more: The Magnuson Children’s Garden

Located at 17300 Fremont Avenue, Shoreline.

The Culinary Arts class meets Wednesday-Friday 10:30-12:00 with students helping out in the garden at least once a month during class time and also volunteering after school and Saturdays for community service hours.  In the winter months the Master Gardeners give short garden talks on topics such as soil, compost, worms, seeds and seed catalogs and pollinators.  The garden has 3 apple trees, raspberries, strawberries, blue berries, grapes, lots of herbs and many types of vegetables.  During the school year the produce is used by the students for their dinners and catered affairs. In the summer our produce goes to a local Shoreline church that provides a weekly dinner for the food insecure in the community.

To find more demonstration gardens in other counties throughout Washington state, search for ‘demonstration gardens’ on the WSU website.