Three-day Sorticulture festival kicks off in Everett

Published 2:44 pm Friday, June 5, 2026

EVERETT — Hundreds of people flocked to downtown Everett on Friday morning to begin the three-day Sorticulture festival, the city’s annual garden fair that attracts visitors from around the region.

Vendors traveled from all across the state, and sometimes beyond, to take part in the festival. One of them was David Egnatz, who sells unique hammocks, woven and dyed by hand, that can be hung inside or outside of a home. Based in western Idaho, his business card refers to his job title as a “relaxation specialist.”

Egnatz has been making the hammocks for over three decades, he said Friday, after learning the skills to do so from a sailor.

“You might say I got tangled up in it,” he said.

Egnatz was just one of the more than 140 vendors that will sell goods across the three-day festival, according to the city, including garden art, flowers, plants, paintings, photographs, food and more. The booths filled six city blocks in downtown Everett, stretching along Colby Avenue from Pacific Avenue to Everett Avenue.

The city’s annual garden party first began in 1998, originally hosted at Legion Park in the north end of the city. After the COVID-19 pandemic, the city moved it downtown to meet state guidelines for outdoor events but stuck with the new location because of its popularity. Thousands of people are expected to attend throughout the weekend.

For Hannah McElhose, who works with Snohomish-based Antique Rose Farm, the event is special because of the people, both vendors and customers, who they get to see every year. The farm has been a vendor selling varieties of roses at Sorticulture for nearly every year it’s been held, she said.

“There’s different vendors that I’ve been alongside the whole time and I’ve grown very close to the people,” McElhose said. “It’s very much kind of a community when Sorticulture comes around, and it’s so amazing.”

Some vendors made their art thanks to local resources located right next to the streets of the festival. Rich Langley, a glassblowing artist, first learned how to make glass artwork in central Oregon decades ago before he moved up to Everett. He uses the hot shop in downtown Everett’s Schack Art Center, just a few blocks away from Sorticulture, to create his glass artwork, he said Friday.

“I usually have my partner come and watch the booth, and I’ll go around and buy a few plants,” Langley said. “… I enjoy the selling, but it’s nice to go and see what everybody else is making.”

Other vendors were fans of the gardening festival for years before deciding to make the jump to get their own booth. Mary Caroline Craig, a Seattle painter, had attended the festival regularly for over a decade — she worked as a florist before becoming a painter — but has now begun selling her artwork at the event where she was previously just a shopper.

Friday was her first day selling her plein air artwork at Sorticulture, which features sights across the Puget Sound region, particularly of Seattle.

“I love the theme, of course, the gardening,” Caroline Craig said of Sorticulture. “But the quality of the artists, the knowledge of the vendors, that’s what kept me coming back every year. Now, it’s fun to be a part of it.”

Sorticulture will continue from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Will Geschke: 425-339-3443; william.geschke@heraldnet.com; X: @willgeschke.