EVERETT — It’s easy to walk around the city’s Riverside Neighborhood, so the Wrights get a lot of people strolling by their corner.
Some people laugh with Roxanne and Paul Wright about the couple’s “wild” pink plastic flamingos. What passers-by really notice, however, is the rain garden where the flamingos perch.
The Wrights are among several people nominated for the newest Monte Cristo Award — Green Gardening — primarily because of their rain garden, which takes up most of the north side of the Wrights’ lot.
Created in 1994, the Monte Cristo Awards recognize Everett people who help make the city look nice by taking pride in their properties.
“We’re pretty excited about this brand new award,” said city public works employee Apryl Hynes, who has helped many residents establish water-cleaning rain gardens.
The Green Gardening award recognizes homeowners who have implemented practices that manage stormwater runoff and and use natural yard care, Hynes said.
“The idea is that stormwater has pollutants in it,” Hynes said. “Along with planting a rain garden to soak up the stormwater, the folks recognized also stay away from chemical fertilizers and pesticides, reduce the amount of lawn on their property, mulch garden beds, plant native shrubs and put in pervious pavers.”
Green gardening methods save time, conserve water and protect local water quality, Hynes said. And the people nominated for the award all have beautiful yards as well, she said.
In order to plant their rain garden, the Wrights had one major challenge. To make it all work they had to move their neighbor’s water line out of their garden area to make way for their rain garden. The cost, about $1,000, was worth it, they said. Three quarters of the run-off from their property goes into the Wrights’ rain garden, as does the water from the basement sump pump.
Their kitchen window overlooks the rain garden, which is filled with favorite logs and rocks, and looks good in each season.
The drought-resistant plants in the garden include some natives and others that like the Northwest climate.
The Wrights have a native rhododendron, hucheras, kinnikinnik, ferns and decorative grasses of many sorts, a blue shag pine, vine maple, red-flowering currant, salal, Oregon grape, lupine, bleeding heart, huckleberry, coreopsis, salvia, lavender, sedums, crocosmia, geums and asters.
The rain garden is just one of the gardens on the Wright property. All the gardens are lined with recycled bricks. New permeable pavers are used for the backyard patio, which is located adjacent to the couple’s lovely south-facing rose and dahlia garden and small patch of lawn. On their lot, the Wrights also have two huge hydrangeas and 14 trees, which help to shade the house.
The house, an older multi-story, Donovan-style home, is freshly painted “Arizona white” and “royal pine green.”
“It’s a small piece of property, but we have maximized it,” Paul said. “And the work is not over. We are finishing a new back porch, we’ll grow vegetables in the back and soon I’ll give us a new kitchen. We’re very active and in good shape, so we expect to enjoy this house for many years. It’s a labor of love.”
Roxanne, 63, a retired teacher and master gardener, and Paul, 64, a cabinet maker, have six grandchildren.
Everybody likes the rain garden, including the cat.
“The city even repainted our fire hydrant, so it looks great in the garden,” Roxanne said of the gold hydrant. “We just had the heart to do this project. It’s a small way to make the world a better place.”
If you go
Celebrate with the recipients of the 2016 Monte Cristo Awards at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 13 at the Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave.
Along with Green Gardening, the other Monte Cristo awards given annually by the city of Everett are: the Neighborhood Friendly Business, given to the owner of a businesses that looks good from the street; Pride of the Neighborhood, which honors homes and gardens that consistently look great; Rejuvenation and Transformation, which goes to a residential property owner who has made a change for the better; and the Marian Krell Award, which honors a prior Monte Cristo award recipient who has excelled in maintaining exceptional care and attractiveness of their home and landscape. The Krell award honors the former director of Everett’s Office of Neighborhoods.
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