Garden Show
Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, February 2, 2005
The Northwest
Flower &Garden Show
Nurseries get ready for the 17th annual event
Garden show
The 17th Annual Northwest Flower &Garden Show begins Wednesday and runs through Feb. 13 at the Washington State Convention Center, Seventh and Pike, Seattle.
Show hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. Tickets cost $19 for adults and $7 for children ages 4-11. Children 3 and under are free. Passes good for entry throughout the show are $65. Half-day admission is $13, available only at the door after 3 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Call 206-789-5333 for details.
Tickets can be purchased at the show or in advance at local businesses including Pacific Stone Co. in Everett, Flower World in Snohomish, Molbak’s in Woodinville, and Emery’s Garden and Wight’s Home &Garden , both in Lynnwood.
For more information 800-229-6311 or visit the Web site www.gardenshow.com.
Stories by Debra Smith
Herald Writer
I magine designing a garden the size of a small house.
The garden would need to stand up to the scrutiny of judges, the media and thousands of visitors at a prestigious gardening show.
Every piece of the garden hundreds of plants, full-grown trees, tons of rocks, decorative benches and fountains would then have to be loaded on trucks and shipped 60 miles.
And the real challenge: Once you arrive, you’d have three days to put it together.
That’s the task of Wells Nursery of Mount Vernon, one of 26 display gardens entrants in the Northwest Flower and Garden Show. Wells is creating the design with the help of Innovative Solutions LLC of Snohomish and A-lluminating Waterfalls of Mount Vernon.
The show begins Wednesday and runs until Sunday at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. The 17th annual spring flower show, one of the largest in North America, features garden exhibits, dozens of seminars and a marketplace with retail exhibitors and artisans.
Seventy-five thousand are expected to attend, and for many the big draw is the jaw-dropping display gardens, created by the region’s top horticulture talent.
Organizers bill the display gardens as the most highly anticipated element of the show, a chance for garden lovers to get a look at trends emerging this season.
This year’s show includes a labyrinth garden promoting peace and a garden called “Shrek’s Swamp,” which uses a palette of native plants augmented with rock, moss, logs and water.
Wells and their collaborators plan a 1,250-square-foot display they call “The Backyard Retreat.” The garden will showcase materials and plants available mainly in the Skagit Valley, said Mark Bailey, an assistant sales manager at Wells in charge of coordinating the display.
Designer Kim Fowler of A-lluminating Waterfalls created a peaceful setting that can accommodate entertaining and relaxing. The centerpiece is a waterfall that spills into a creek, flowing into a nearby pond. A footbridge spans the creek and nearby is a private sitting area. A small lawn leaves some room to play.
“The waterway is visually interesting, and it creates noise to draw people in,” he explained.
The garden will be packed with 75 varieties of plants, from 6 inches to 25 feet tall. Wells specializes in grafted and ornamental conifers, and their forte is selling plants that are difficult to get elsewhere, like Ruby Slippers dogwoods and Riverside spruces, Bailey said.
Many of the specialty plants they sell will star in the design. Ornamental conifers will ring the outside of the garden, while deciduous trees and weeping conifers will fill the interior. The display will be bordered with Allan Block, chosen for its ease of construction and its clean, natural look.
Part of the challenge of designing the garden is that virtually no soil is used. All the elevation changes are made with palettes and sawdust. In the past, gardens visitors can walk through have been popular and they wanted to incorporate pathways through their display, Bailey said. They soon nixed that idea when it became clear it would be too difficult to construct a pathway that’s sturdy and safe enough to accommodate thousands tromping through, he said. The design still retains the look of pathways, but visitors will have to view the garden from the aisles of the convention center.
The show’s organizers usually supplies some of the materials, such as mulch, stones and retaining wall blocks, but Wells will be bringing virtually everything they need in an attempt to use materials exclusively from the Skagit Valley. Rock, for instance, is drawn from Beaver Lake and Whatcom quarries donated from BTI Soils of Mount Vernon.
That decision will make for a stunning garden but it will be a big headache setting the garden up. The nursery plans to rent a semi to haul the biggest plants and materials. About 10 more truckloads of materials will have to be driven to Seattle. The show workers help unload materials, but Wells is on its own setting it up. The nursery recruited a small army of horticulture student volunteers from a Lake Washington Technical College to help. “This is too much work to take on yourself,” Bailey said. He equated the garden to creating a stage setting for a theatre production.
The display gardens are a competitive event, with participants investing money and months of planning to prepare for the show, said Roger Ragusa, a retail sales manager at Wells. It’s expensive for the businesses participating – Ragusa declined to say how much. The show compensates businesses with a flat fee for participating, and with the judicious use of volunteers, it’s possible to break even financially, he said.
Fowler will take time off from his business to participate. And how many hours has Bailey put in? “Including all the hours in the middle of the night when I can get to sleep?” he said. “It’s been a constant thing since September.”
Despite all the trouble, it’s worth it, Ragusa said. The show is a tremendous business opportunity, a chance to let other landscapers and designers see what makes their business special in a crowded Seattle market. In a sense, the garden display is almost like a living, breathing advertisement that thousands are guaranteed to see.
“We want to get our name out there,” Bailey said. “We want to show people there’s something outside Seattle.”
Even though the competition is stiff, the employees at Wells insist they aren’t involved to win -although that would be nice.
“When it’s all done, you want to have fun and create opportunities for business,” Ragusa said.
Maree Hudson, a Wells employee, quickly chimed in: “And then you want to take a vacation.”
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.
