The Burke Museum Project
“…even modest increases in the native plant cover on suburban properties significantly increases the number and species of breeding birds, including birds of conservation concern. As gardeners and stewards of our land, we have never been so empowered to help save biodiversity from extinction, and the need to do so has never been so great.”
– Doug Tallamy, Professor of Entomology, University of Delaware
About the project
We need native plants everywhere, including in urban environments. Oxbow is proud to have produced over 70,000 native plants for the landscape of the Burke Museum, on the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle.
The grounds, designed by GGN (building designed by Olson Kundig), provide museum visitors with a meaningful and interactive experience with two of Washington’s most iconic and beautiful ecosystems: the Douglas fir forest and the Puget Sound camas prairie. Opened in the fall of 2019, the New Burke landscape seeks to connect people with the floral heritage of Washington State in a way that inspires appreciation and personal action.
Oxbow collected seeds and grew plants for the project from 2015. These plants are an active element of the New Burke’s outdoor exhibit space. The plants educate tens of thousands of museum visitors annually about native Washington plants, while also providing healthy habitat for wildlife in an urban Seattle setting.
For more information on the project, plus an extensive visual list of the trees, evergreen shrubs, ferns, and other plants featured in the landscape, please visit the Burke Museum website.
Media & Articles
- The New Burke Museum landscape cultivates relationships with native people, native plants and the cultural history of the land
The Seattle Times Pacific NW Magazine, 11/3/2019 - Burke’s landscape will bloom into a new quad at the UW
Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce, 10/10/2019 - The New Burke Museum: Your Family Guide
ParentMap, 10/2/2019 - Everything about the Pacific Northwest is on display at the new Burke Museum. Even the scientists.
Crosscut, 9/27/19 - The Burke Museum of Natural History
Gustafson, Guthrie, Nichol (GGN) website - Grown to Survive: How the New Burke Museum Project is Using Forestry Science to Change the way we Grow and Specify Plants in Landscape Architecture Projects
2017 WASLA Conference – Powerpoint Presentation - Growth & re-use: New Burke landscaping
Burke Museum Blog, 6/12/2016
