The Northwest Flower &Garden Show, celebrating its 22nd year and its first run under the ownership of O’Loughlin Trade Shows, is just the thing to get you in the mood for spring.
Get ready, gardening fans!
This year’s 23 show gardens opened for two hours on Tuesday to the media only, and I can honestly tell you they are full of creative tricks, fun design ideas, hot trends and – Ciscoe said he agreed with me – even surprises!
Sure, every year garden creators come up with pretty cool stuff, but this year’s show – maybe it was its near brush with death – seemed to really push the creative envelope and go beyond expectations.
Dinosaurs, goats, chickens, compost socks, weather-proof board games and Pierce Brosnan are all in the gardens this year, along with gigantic trees and stone, swaths of yellow tulips in full bloom and enough outdoor furniture to outfit the poolside of a Vegas casino.
Recycled materials, food crops and water features dominated many gardens, too.
No matter what you’re really into, it’s probably here.
One garden is a home splattered inside and out with living walls. You can actually walk on top of it to see a stunning green roof at eye level, too.
Yes, some of the gardens were duds. Predictable. Uninspired. Hurried. But in my almost 10 years of covering the show, these gardens hold their own.
Garden creators, including numerous Snohomish County designers and landscape builders, were just putting the finishing touches on their works of wonder during the tour as the horticultural paparazzi breezed through with local garden author, Marty Wingate, leading the way with fun facts about each of the gardens.
Rain barrels, cisterns and other water-saving devices seemed to be everywhere in the gardens, which ranged from extremely formal and European to down-on-the-farm rustic, including this truck (pictured), planted with vegetables and outfitted with a chicken coop that allows hens to roost and lay eggs in the cab.
And yet, even that garden – “Crops for Clunkers” by the Seattle Urban Farm Co. – was sophisticated and inspired, not sloppy.
Watch this space for more NWFGS news and a link to a photo gallery … today … if technology will cooperate.
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