SEQUIM — This town has been promised a rose garden.
“It will be glorious,” vows Berta Warden, one of the volunteers swarming — like worker bees in straw hats — at Sequim’s Water Reuse Demonstration Site.
The site, just north of Carrie Blake Park, is a 29-acre swath where people stroll, listen to summertime concerts and walk their dogs.
It’s also where the city and state demonstrate how reclaimed water can irrigate a dry prairie.
And among the latest uses — make that reuses — for Sequim’s recycled water is the Olympic Peninsula Master Gardeners’ 4-acre demonstration garden.
Lavender flourished through spring and summer on its terraces, and now the dahlias are abloom — but they’re just the start of an ambitious project.
The Master Gardeners plan many more phases, including a children’s garden, a culinary garden, plots replete with low-maintenance and deer-proof plants, plus a bee and butterfly garden, fruit trees and vegetables.
It’s all about showing people what’s possible in their own backyards, said Bill Wrobel, president of the Master Gardeners Foundation of the Olympic Peninsula.
The demo garden is living proof of what will grow in the Dungeness Valley’s microclimate, and in its mineral- and rock-rich soil.
Meanwhile, Warden, hunkered down and pruning lavender, said the Master Gardeners already have other flowers on their minds.
“We’re going to be planting roses in February, come heck or high water,” Warden said.
“It’s going to be a 6,000-square-foot garden of roses and perennials,” added Donna Marie “Tiva” Tetiva of Sequim.
“That way, people can see they can have year-round interest in a rose garden.”
Tetiva is a certified rosarian, an expert on the flower’s needs and qualities.
Donations on view
On Thursday and again on Monday morning, visitors could enjoy a display of donations to the project.
Tractor driver Ron Smith of Sequim volunteered to level the quarter-acre plot where the roses will be planted; he spread a load of soil contributed by Hermann Brothers of Port Angeles.
And Greg Johnson, Shaun Johnson and John Moniz of Superior Stone in Sequim gave the gardeners a reduced rate for their labor, as they moved boulders and built a stairway to the dahlias on the top terrace.
Through it all, Warden, Tetiva and other volunteers imagined the roses that will lure people onto the garden’s path.
“We’re going to plant in color groups so it doesn’t look like confetti,” said Tetiva. “The hot colors — yellows, reds, oranges, corals — will blend into the cooler ones: the pinks, peaches and lavenders.”
Tetiva and her team have already selected the rose varieties. The parcel will be awash in hybrid teas, grandifloras, floribundas and David Austin English roses, with benches interspersed so visitors can pause amid the perfume.
“You can have a little lunch here,” Tetiva said, and in summer, come walk among the flowers before, during and after a Music & Movies in the Park concert at the nearby James Center bandshell.
Lure of fragrance
It’s a fragrant, elegant way to draw people in and demonstrate sustainable gardening, said Bill Kauffman, the project’s chief fundraiser.
The roses also will herald future plantings, to range from ornamental grasses and a shade garden to ponds and a fountain.
The demo garden will eventually stretch toward the Friendship Garden and pond honoring Sequim’s sister city of Shiso, Japan, in Carrie Blake Park.
“As we move south toward the Friendship Garden, every one of the areas will have a different flavor,” Kauffman said.
“We’re doing this incrementally,” with money from the Master Gardeners Foundation, which holds annual plant sales and welcomes donations for new plants, benches, informational kiosks and other garden features.
To put in the whole garden, the group will need $250,000, Kauffman said.
For information about the project or to make a contribution, phone Kauffman at 503-260-6509 or Wrobel at 360-504-1146.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
