Raising Duncan
How Spokane Parks manages an annual garden with more than 30,000 plants
By Josh Morrisey
Photos: City of Spokane Parks and Recreation
No trip to Spokane would be complete without a visit to Manito Park, and if you’re lucky enough to visit in the summer, no visit to Manito Park would be complete without a visit to Duncan Garden—a European Renaissance-style garden comprising three acres.
Bursting with color from roughly 30,000 annual plants from June through September, Duncan Garden is one of the most jaw-dropping beautiful places in Spokane, but to ensure a crowd pleaser every year, staff members start the planning process many months in advance.
Planning
Gardener Tara Newbury was responsible for designing the garden for 2021. She began plotting the color scheme and layout in October 2020. Inspired by the colors on a Mexican sugar skull, Newbury decided to highlight the garden with vibrant purples, pinks, oranges, and yellows. Working with a map of the garden, she was able to color in the planting beds with the exact design she wants, ensuring that no colors are clashing and the three-acre garden is beautifully balanced, with one side perfectly mirroring the other.
Once the colors were determined, Newbury decided which plants represent those colors and made sure seeds and plugs are available for those plants. For the roughly 30,000 plants that needed to be raised, staff members ordered about 25-percent seeds and 75-percent plugs. Plugs require less labor, but more obscure plants tend not to be as available as plugs and need to be seeded. Manito staff members enjoy featuring newer or more obscure varieties of plants to keep the garden fresh; these unique flora also provide inspiration to home gardeners who may visit. Some tried-and-true species and cultivars are selected as a fail-safe, in case less road-tested plants fail.
After Newbury chose the plants and how many, staff members put an order out for bid and accepted the lowest price quote provided from three suppliers—a requirement from the city’s purchasing department. The first shipment of plants arrives in March; they are grown in the greenhouses until mid-May. During this time, all greenhouses are completely full due to the huge number of plants. Growing greenhouses are attached to a conservatory that is open to the public daily; this allows for staffing efficiency, as gardeners who maintain the conservatory also care for the plants in the growing greenhouses.
Planting
The planting process begins mid-May, past the yearly average last frost. It takes six full-time staff members eight to 10 days to plant the entire garden. A few handy tools and techniques are employed to ensure the garden is planted as quickly and effectively as possible:
Mason line: Mason line is stretched along the outer edges of longer planting beds to ensure rows are perfectly straight during the planting process. Even slight deviations over a long row can make the whole bed look sloppy, so this simple tool is a lifesaver.
Drill-augers: Augers attached to drills help staff members quickly create holes for plants. One staff member makes the holes while one or two other staff members follow behind and plant.
Spacing tools: A spacing tool can be created in a variety of ways, but at Manito, staff members use bamboo sticks cut at specific lengths. Bamboo is a cheap material, and it is easy to make dozens of each particular length for multiple staff members to use. This way, while staff members are going along with the drill-auger, they can ensure that all plants will be perfectly spaced.
Pro tip: Don’t plant too deep, and be sure to water the plants by hand directly after planting to help the soil settle.
Weeding
With a good irrigation system and plenty of sun exposure once the plants are in, the battle then shifts to weeds. It’s crucial, especially with a large garden like Duncan, to have a weed-management plan in place.
Apply pesticides preventatively, not curatively. It’s a good idea to apply pre-emergent weed killer immediately after you’ve planted the weed-free beds and allowed the soil to settle.
Know thy garden. It’s important to know how long it takes to weed the entire garden. If the right amount of staffing is not applied to keep up on weeds, you’re going to be fighting weed takeover for the entire season.
Use the right tools. Not all weeds need to be plucked by hand or with a spade. A scuffle hoe is a fantastic tool for getting at weeds as they’re beginning to form.
Use fertilizer. Fertilizer is a great way to give plants a leg up in competing with weeds for light and root growth.
Watering
You’ll want to water the garden more frequently as plants are first getting established; then ease back to avoid overwatering that can cause root rot.
Take Notes
Finally, take notes throughout the entire process to ensure you have the best chance at success in the next year.
A Note About COVID-19
2020 was a rough year, and like in many parks and recreation organizations, revenue loss from COVID-19 shutdowns meant a much leaner staff; therefore, Spokane was only able to hire fewer than one-third of its usual seasonal staff members. Luckily, thanks to a team effort and the help of amazing volunteers, the department was still able to make Duncan Garden happen. Park staff members, from accounting to marketing, worked double-duty and got their hands dirty in planting and maintaining the garden. Volunteers from The Friends of Manito, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that supports the park, stepped in to provide dozens of volunteers to help maintain Duncan and other gardens across the park. Take advantage of volunteerism as much as possible during these tough times. And be sure to work with your human-resources department and risk management when developing volunteer positions to save the department from potential issues down the road.
Josh Morrisey is a marketing assistant for the city of Spokane’s Parks and Recreation Department. Reach him at jmorrisey@spokanecity.org.