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Kruckeberg Botanic Garden
The Kruckeberg Botanic Garden at Richmond Beach, in Shoreline, Washington, is a public garden dedicated to community enjoyment and educational enrichment. Mareen and Arthur Kruckeberg assembled the Garden’s four-acre plant collection over many years. It is rich in native plants of the Pacific Northwest and unusual species from other lands, set in a wooded, park-like atmosphere. The bird list identifies over 25 species that have visited the Garden. In January 2008 the Garden became part of the City of Shoreline’s park system. The Kruckeberg Botanic Garden Foundation (KBGF) is responsible for operation and maintenance of the Garden, in collaboration with the City of Shoreline. The KBGF also operates the on-site MsK Rare Plant Nursery.
Hours and Tours
The Garden is open to the public at designated hours, for tours, by appointment, and for horticultural workshops.
KBGF Mission Statement
The Kruckeberg Botanic Garden Foundation is dedicated to the conservation and enhancement of the Kruckeberg Botanic Garden, and to the educational, cultural, and aesthetic enrichment of the community and all who visit.Kruckeberg Botanic Garden Foundation
The Kruckeberg Botanic Garden Foundation became a Washington State corporation in 1998 with the objective of conserving the Kruckeberg land and plant collection in perpetuity, as a garden, open space, and horticultural learning center for the public good. (KBGF By-Laws)
The citizens of Shoreline approved a Parks, Open Space and Trails levy in 2006 which enabled the City of Shoreline to acquire the Garden in January 2008. The KBGF and the City have formed a partnership charging the Foundation with running the Garden and the on-site MsK Rare Plant Nursery. The Foundation is also developing plans to raise the funds needed for endowing a maintenance program.
The Kruckeberg Botanic Garden Foundation is a tax-exempt organization under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. We seek donations and grants for the purpose of preserving and enhancing the Kruckeberg Botanic Garden.
Board of Directors
Richard G. Olmstead, president
Bill Schnall, treasurer
Robert C. Hauck, secretary
Herbert Bryce
Tina Christiansen
Tanya DeMarsh-Dodson
Paul Grace
Enid Kriewald, ex officio
Arthur R. Kruckeberg (garden founder), ex officio
Richard Leary
Matthew Loper
Kathryn R. Morino
Alan Yen
Richard G. Olmstead, President
Dick Olmstead’s teaching and research interests are on the systematics and evolutionary relationships of plants, with an emphasis on primitive angiosperms and plants in the mint, potato/tomato, borage, foxglove, verbena, and related families. He teaches plant systematics at the University of Washington, carrying on the tradition of C. L. Hitchcock, Art Kruckeberg, and Melinda Denton. As Curator of the Herbarium, he is interested in documenting the plant biodiversity of the Pacific Northwest and organizing and leading field trips throughout the region. The Herbarium also participates in plant surveys in cooperation with various federal, state, local, and private land management agencies.
Dick’s interest in gardening with natives was stimulated by his association with Art Kruckeberg when he was a graduate student at UW. After returning to UW as a faculty member, Dick began his own garden with native plants and plants from around the world that he collected or were of scientific interest. The Olmsteads have one acre in Lake Forest Park that is half garden and half woodland (a native plant restoration project in progress). MsK Nursery has been a source of many interesting plants in their garden.
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Bill Schnall, M.D., was born and raised on Long Island but started inching west to attend Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with high honors in Biology and returned to New York City to attend Cornell University Medical College. Upon graduation in 1971, he began his career in pediatrics in the Pacific Northwest – first as an intern and resident at Children’s Hospital, followed by two years as Lt. Commander in the U. S. Navy based at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, and then thirty years in pediatric practice here in Shoreline. He retired in 2006.
Bill married his junior high school classmate, Jan, in 1973. They have two adult daughters, Lisa and Amy. While in Shoreline, Bill served ten years on the Shoreline Chamber of Commerce, eight years on the Shoreline School Board, and as President of the Medical Staff at Children’s Hospital.
Bill’s passionate interest in horticulture started innocently enough with a gift, from Jan, of an African violet in 1972. While he no longer has that particular plant, his home, both inside and out, is approaching the density (and beauty) of an Amazonian Rain Forest. He is most proud of his burgeoning bonsai collection and the unusual plant specimens obtained from the Kruckeberg Garden and Heronswood Nursery.
Bill’s retirement includes an active exercise program, traveling, engaging his West Highland terrier in active play, reading, woodworking and financial management at his former medical practice, but his love, passion and devotion to horticulture finds him doing “something” in the garden at least three days/week. When it is just too cold, too dark or too wet to be in the garden, Bill would most likely be found elbow-deep in flour (as opposed to flower) making loaves of bread.
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Bob Hauck first experienced the joy of bare feet in loamy soil in his parents’ 1940s “victory garden.” During school years in Minnesota he worked summers as a Scout canoeing guide and then a biologist with the fisheries research unit for the state – in that state, of course, studying the ecology of fresh water lakes and streams. The demands of medical and graduate school drove him back to the soil where he annually found solace in a 50’ x 50’ vegetable garden.
In the mid-1960s Children’s Hospital and the northwest climate lured him away from Minnesota’s six-month growing season to year round gardening. When the Hauck family moved to the old Taylor farm home in Richmond Beach they knew they had arrived at a plant paradise. For over 30 years they have cultivated their 1.5 acre plot in the Kruckeberg neighborhood.
Bob retired from his pediatric practice at Group Health Cooperative in 1996 but still works part time at GHC and Richmond Beach Pediatrics. He has always been deeply invested in medical education and is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine. In retirement he is active in Shoreline Rotary Club (president 2001-2002), Shoreline/Lake Forest Park Arts Council, and other community activities.
Bob and wife Katie use their home as an informal B&B for 6 married children and 14 grandchildren. Gardening as a hobby competes for Bob’s time with tennis, traveling, golf, grand-parenting, and bridge. He volunteers for the Board as an appreciation for Mareen and Art, as an extension of his favorite hobby, and to insure the Garden as a priceless asset in our community’s future.
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A native of Arizona, Herb Bryce was introduced to and fell in love with the Puget Sound region while stationed at Whidbey Naval Air Station, and he vowed to return upon graduating from Arizona State University. He finally made it in the fall of 1966 by accepting a job to set up the science program at Seattle Central Community College (SCCC). Bryce remained at SCCC as a chemistry professor and Dean of Science & Math until he retired in the fall of 1999.
Bryce is a nature lover from way back, being raised on a farm, trekking and camping in the desert and the lush northwest. He was a member of the German Shepherd Search & Rescue team for seven years which gave him lots of time in the Washington woods. He is looking forward to being part of the Kruckeberg Botanic Garden Foundation.
Herb and his wife, Gloria, have been active in the Shoreline community since moving here in 1980. Herb’s activities include: founding member of the Shoreline/Lake Forest Park Arts Council; current member of the Shoreline Parks, Recreation, and Culture Services Board; Vision Shoreline committee member; past member of the Shoreline School Board for 13 years; and American Chemical Society member. His latest project is helping to develop the Fremont Trail in the Highland Terrace Neighborhood.
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Tina Christiansen's earliest memories include pulling up carrots and helping her grandpa plant corn. The variety of plants in her life have greatly increased since then, but the act of working in garden continues to be a connection with her past as well as a form of meditation. Tina is a Seattle native who moved into the Shoreline area at the age of 2. She attended Shoreline schools and graduated from Shorecrest High School. At the University of Washington, she majored in communications.
In 1992, Tina and her husband, Kim, purchased their home in Shoreline — complete with a dandelion-filled front lawn. Over the past 16 years, that lawn (and MOST of the dandelions) have disappeared. The front garden now goes from street to house with a brick path meandering through it. While work continues on the back yard, it has become clear that a garden is never "done."
After spending nearly 17 years in corporate communications and public relations roles for local companies, Tina happily works out of her home as a freelance marketing writer. She enjoys learning about the wide variety of clients she supports. Besides the usual leisure activities of reading, gardening, skiing, etc., the Christiansens are active members of the Northwest Alfa Romeo Club and look forward to club driving events.
Tina discovered the Kruckeberg Botanic Garden through a city-sponsored tour in 2005, She is excited by the opportunity to work on making the public-private partnership successful so that the garden can be preserved in perpetuity.
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Tanya DeMarsh-Dodson has worked in horticulture for more than 17 years in the Puget Sound basin in landscaping and retail nurseries. She was raised in the Pacific Northwest, gardening from the time she could walk. She has volunteered at the Dunn Gardens since 1993; she serves on the Board and is Chairperson of the Garden Conservation Committee. She has been a member of the Great Plant Picks Committee since 2000. She is currently the Pacific Northwest representative for The Garden Conservancy, a national organization devoted to the preservation of American gardens.
Tanya is an historian by training with degrees from Colby College and New York University. Her Ph.D. research at the University of California, Davis, focused on the history of the North Pacific rim lands.
Tanya has been a visitor to the Kruckeberg garden since the 1960’s and has worked to insure the creation of this botanic garden as a public garden for community enjoyment and education.
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Paul Grace is a native of the Midwest who grew up outside St. Louis. He is a 1968 graduate of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, and there he met Claire, his wife and life partner of 37 years. After working overseas for several years, they lived in Boston until moving to Seattle in 1983.
The Graces were drawn here by Shoreline’s great schools, but it’s the quality of our neighborhoods – and neighbors – that keeps them here. Their third of an acre is replete with Kruckeberg Garden shrubs, ground covers and trees, which they began collecting at a Mothers’ Day sale almost 20 years ago.
Their daughters attended Shoreline schools, and Paul was active in the PTA, Art Docent program and other aspects of their education. He served on the Shorewood Site Council and then as a member of the Shoreline School Board, including terms as vice president and president. Paul was appointed to the Shoreline City Council in 2003 and served through 2005.
Paul worked in human resources and labor relations from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. For the past 13 years he has worked for the Port of Seattle in labor relations and systems operations. In addition to school and City Council activities, a major civic endeavor has been conflict resolution. Paul has served as a mediator for dispute resolution centers throughout Western Washington since 1993, mediating landlord-tenant, commercial, workplace, family and neighborhood disputes, and arbitrating business cases for the Better Business Bureau.
Paul and Claire are avid sea kayakers. They’ve enjoyed kayaking in many areas of the United States and Canada, including a week-long exploration of Moresby Island in the Queen Charlotte Islands. Paul loves to garden, and he supplies his house (and neighborhood) with vegetables and flowers throughout most of the year. He is the family chef (favorite cuisine: Italian) and for years has donated gourmet meals to school, Chamber, Arts Council and other community auctions.
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Enid is one of Professor Kruckeberg’s daughters.
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More info on the Garden’s founder is on the history page.
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Richard Leary
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Matt Loper has always loved plants and all things botanical. He attended the University of Washington, receiving bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and botany in 1982, and subsequently earned his doctorate in plant physiology from Cornell University. At that time his interests lay chiefly in stress physiology, and for two years he worked as a research scientist at the USDA Agricultural Research Center in Philadelphia, PA, studying the effects of acid soils on plants.
In 1990 Matt moved back to Seattle where he worked at the UW, studying taxol production by the Pacific yew. Many specimens were collected and propagated with the sage guidance of Art Kruckeberg. In 1993 Matt began teaching botany, environmental science and chemistry at Shoreline Community College; he has been there ever since. During his summers he has conducted ecology classes in the Methow valley and in Costa Rica, and he worked for Olympic National Park, conducting rare plant surveys in the alpine zone. He has also been involved at the community level, helping coordinate native plant restoration projects in the Boeing Creek watershed and other nearby parks. Matt thinks it is these small natural areas and botanical gems like the Kruckeberg Garden that we should protect for the good of the community and our own humanity.
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Kathie Morino became aware of the Kruckeberg Botanic Garden while working with Art and Mareen's daughter Enid, who recruited her as a volunteer for MsK Nursery plant sales. She finds the Garden a fascinating place: the hustle and bustle of the outside world disappears as one steps through the gate, and with each visit there’s always something different and wonderful to experience in that exceptional place. She is a founding member of KBGF, served on the Board as Treasurer from 1999 until 2005, and is determined to preserve the Garden as the Kruckeberg’s had planned. Kathie lives in Edmonds and is a full-time mom.
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Alan Yen has a broad interest in botany, and in particular in native plants and plant propagation. Alan has served in many positions in the Central Puget Sound Chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society, including field trip coordinator, chapter botanist, and chapter chair. As a member of the Board, Alan Yen hopes to contribute his knowledge to the long-term success of the KBGF.
Alan’s educational background is in Botany and received his BS from the University of California at Davis and Ph.D. from the University of Washington, where he met and learned the work of Art Kruckeberg. He works at the University of Washington helping to transfer and license research into real world applications.
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