Join us at the Center for Urban Horticulture to learn about Olmsted parks

Did you know that there are nearly 80 parks in Seattle where the Olmsted design firm left its imprint? Between 1902 and 1940, Seattle’s park landscape was heavily influenced by John Olmsted, and many of those designs can still be seen in parks and nearby neighborhoods. The PlantAmnesty community will have an opportunity to learn about these spaces from Anne Knight and Jennifer Ott, two people involved with the Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks.

Jennifer Ott: “A Brief Overview of Seattle’s Olmsted Legacy”

Bio: Jennifer Ott is an environmental historian and the assistant director at HistoryLink. She is the author of Olmsted in Seattle: Creating a Park System for a Modern City and has contributed a number of articles on Seattle’s Olmsted Brother legacy to HistoryLink.org. She is a past president of Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks and the current chair of the Volunteer Park Trust steering committee.

Anne Knight: “Trees & Tree Canopy: Planting for the Future”

Bio: Anne Knight is a longtime community and park activist in Seattle. She has served on the boards of both the National Association for Olmsted Parks (now Olmsted Network) and Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks and worked in the Open Space Program at Seattle Parks & Recreation. She serves on the LCM Landscape Peer Review Panel for the State Capitol and the Capitol Arboretum Advisory Committee.

We encourage you to discover some Olmsted facts at seattleolmsted.org. You may be surprised, and will surely be impressed, by the dense map of parks that were designed with the Olmstead philosophy.

Members and non-members are welcome at this Meeting of Like Minds.  To help cover hall rental expenses, there is a small fee for non-members, and we encourage non-members to register in advance in order to streamline check-in. We will also accept non-member payment at the event. Members do not need to pre-register.

The evening will start with drinks, food, and time to socialize, with doors opening shortly after 6:30 p.m. We encourage you to bring commercially prepared food to share in a potluck.  As a reminder, the University no longer permits us to share home-prepared food, but we can still enjoy social mixing and food sharing for the evening. We will provide compostable plates, flatware, and napkins.

After our welcome and introductions at 7 pm, we will hold a short auction of garden-related tools, art, and/or plants. This auction also helps cover the costs of hall rental. If you have items to donate toward this auction, please send relevant information to programs@plantamnesty.org.

PlantAmnesty will continue to encourage the use of masks when distancing is not feasible at indoor events, but masking and vaccination proof will not be required.