Join us for a walking tour of Seattle’s newest and boldest urban park, led by Richard Hartlage of Land Morphology, which provided planting design services for this expansive project. The park skims along Elliott Bay, spanning 20 acres and 26 blocks, and features 500 plant varieties and nearly 800 trees. Each planting zone tells a unique story rooted in local history and ecology and exemplifies how thoughtful planting design creates spaces that connect the community with nature, enhance biodiversity and serve as models for sustainable urban development. Overlook Walk is populated with species native to Puget Sound’s coastal bluffs and provide valuable shade, habitat and stormwater filtration. The Aquarium Rooftop’s native meadow landscape was designed with guidance from traditional ecological knowledge-keeper Valerie Segrest, an enrolled member of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe.  

Tour leader’s bio: 

Richard Hartlage is the CEO and founding partner of the Seattle-based landscape architectural firm Land Morphology. His award-winning designs are emotive, immersive spaces that incorporate sophisticated horticulture and historical knowledge to heighten the human experience of the natural world. Richard’s passion for horticulture, cultivated while working in public gardens and estates and managing landscape architecture studios, is applied to each design from the conceptual phase through development of maintenance protocol and beyond.  

The firm’s portfolio includes the Leach Botanical Garden in Portland, the Herb and Vegetable Garden at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Chihuly Garden and Glass, and numerous private residential landscapes and commercial projects across eight states. Richard has contributed to six books on horticulture and landscape architecture, including “The Authentic Garden: Naturalistic and Contemporary Planting design in Landscape Architecture.” He received the American Horticulture Society’s Great American Gardeners Award in 2018 and the Mrs. Oakleigh Thorne Medal from the Garden Club of America in 2025.

Seattle Waterfront Plan