Mt. Rainier Elementary Reading Garden

We partnered with the school community to reimagine a campus’s beloved—but underutilized—gazebo and surrounding garden.

Once considered unsafe and overgrown, the site is being transformed to create a space welcoming the whole neighborhood to interact with nature, enjoy time with family, and play with friends.  A phased approach to planting and updates meets the capacity of the community and ensures long-term success.

This implementation project was guided by NDC’s Landscape Design and Environmental Resilience team, and built on recommendations from the Mount Rainier Elementary Sustainable Campus Toolkit (2019), a project made possible by NDC’s Community Design Works Program.

the project introduced:

In spring and summer 2025, NDC activated this plan through two hands-on workshops as part of The Vision is Yours Placemaking & Placekeeping Conference. Attendees and volunteers helped implement the site improvements while learning practical design and construction skills to apply in their own communities.

Led by NDC’s Director of Landscape Design and Environmental Resilience, Laura Robinson, participants learned how to design low-maintenance, climate-resilient gardens that balance ecological function with beauty. With support from MyEcoSpaces, a companion workshop guided participants in assembling creative, child-friendly seating for the school’s reading garden, bringing new vibrancy and usability to the space.

What’s Growing in the Reading Garden?

Plants were selected for seasonal color, pollinator benefits, drought and heat resistance, and low watering needs. Brown-eyed susans and Bee Balm give vibrant summer blooms that bees love to visit. Butterflyweed supplies food for monarch caterpillars. Bushy asters bloom in late fall and provide late season pollinator food.  

The garden palette:

Plants for sun

Plants for partial shade

Nearly 200 pollinator-friendly native plants now thrive at Mount Rainier Elementary School’s Reading Garden and are accessible to the whole neighborhood and school community to enjoy and learn from.

Thanks to our Project Partners:

This Community Design Works project, the Mount Rainier Elementary Sustainable Campus Toolkit (2019) was supported by design volunteers Megan Barnes, Landscape Architect, Dorris Hwang, Architect, Anna McCorvey, Architect, Holly Simmons, Community Planner, and Anne Harris, Architect.