Snohomish woman’s garden wins Molbak’s autumn contest

  • Herald staff and news services
  • Wednesday, December 29, 2004 9:00pm
  • Life

Denise Cosgrove of Snohomish is the grand prize winner in Molbak’s Autumn Garden Vignettes contest.

She received a $500 gift certificate to the Woodinville nursery.

From the window boxes to the flowerbeds, Cosgrove emphasized foliage, texture and color in her fall garden, combining plants with autumn harvest elements and garden art.

Some of her top-pick plants for fall are big, even though her garden is situated on a small city lot: Melianthus major, New Zealand flax and Colocasia esculenta.

Cosgrove featured grasses in her beds and containers, particularly brown sedge, which she said has the versatility of a “basic black dress.” And she plugged plenty of coleus in areas where perennials had faded. Cosgrove used paint – cobalt blue to pumpkin – to make her garden pop.

Cosgrove began creating her garden from scratch a decade ago after moving to the Northwest from Texas. She strove to create a pleasant retreat for her family that would serve as an extension of her Victorian-style home.

This isn’t the first time her garden has been recognized; she won second place in the Pacific Northwest Competition for Home Gardeners in 2002 and her garden will be featured on the Snohomish Garden Club Tour for the third time this year.

Molbak’s invited amateur garden enthusiasts in King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap counties to participate in its seasonal garden contest.

Entrants submitted photos that showed vignettes of colorful fall foliage, texture and elements of the fall harvest.

Molbak’s staff critiqued entries based on the celebration of fall gardens and autumn harvest. Creative uses of space, design, imaginative detail and plant selection were also considered.

Two finalists each received $100 gift certificates: Alyson Ross-Markley of Redmond and Jeanne Hannah of Woodinville.

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