By Jim McCausland, Sunset Magazine
When I previewed the Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle yesterday, I went with a certain amount of trepidation. This is first show without founder Duane Kelly at the helm, so I wondered whether new management would be able to keep the exhibit quality up. At the end of the day, I liked what I saw. The O'Loughlin Trade Shows people managed to attract first-quality show-garden designers such as Dan Robinson, Karen Stefonick, Susan Calhoun, Phil Wood, and Bob Lily, plus organization such as Seattle Tilth and Flower Growers of Puget Sound.
The show includes a good mix of serious design, whimsy, green innovation, and downright silliness—something for everyone. There are more chickens than I've seen here before, plus a few goats, fossils, and dinosaur tracks. And that's just in the show gardens.
Of course many people attend the NWF&G show to check out hundreds of vendors who hawk everything from aromatherapy blends and high quality tools to seeds and collectible plants you can't find anywhere else.
I personally go for the fragrance—sarcococca, witch hazel, winter-flowering viburnums—and to try to sort out garden trends based on what designers have on display. In that trend category, I made note of water screens, which are sheets or see-through streams of water that fall across window openings or down textured rock. Most were pondless, disappearing into stones that hid recirculating pumps. Vertical garden walls are still on the ascendancy, some for indoor use. I wonder how they'll do over time.
When you go to the show, open daily today through Sunday, be sure to take a digital camera and a note pad. Admission is $20 for adults, $5 for teens, free for kids 12 and under.
