2024 Northwest Flower & Garden Show: Tremendous Tree Trunk Anchors a Mystical Show Garden

"The Secret Garden" Nature Perfect Landscape

In 2020, Better Homes & Gardens recognized Seattle's Northwest Flower & Garden show as the best flower and garden show in the country. It is truly on a grand scale with 20 show gardens, a collection of City Living gardens designed for apartment or condo living with balcony or patio growing spaces. The show has educational programming and lectures included in your ticket price - the wealth of knowledge available is staggering. The show includes a large retail area where plant specialists of all types create stores to cater to your botanical whims - houseplants, citrus trees, camellias about to bloom, orchids, dahlia bulbs, tiny terrarium plants. The selection is far and wide and you will not know what to do. It's okay. Experts are on hand to talk you through it.

No matter what, you will be inspired. You thoughts will ping pong between  your patio, your kitchen windowsill, your front porch. You may find yourself sketching on a napkin while you're having lunch. Embrace it. And see what your brain does with all of this madness. Plus the shopping for garden-related tools, seeds, fertilizers, art, furniture, pots etc. is staggering. I am going to do my best to give you a glimpse at the magnificent show gardens and a variety of photos to give you a sense of the event over a series of posts. Please do try to attend next year with a garden friend; I know that you will love it. 

The Secret Garden by Nature Perfect Landscaping (also shown in top photo) won the 2024 Founder's Cup award as Best In Show for it's incredible use of a real 15 foot wide and 8 foot tall stump, including a flowing stream and the charming use of fairies and fairy doors throughout the installation. This enormous beautiful natural garden will find a permanent home at Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma. 

You can see the fairies leaping among the real Pearl Oyster mushrooms. Congratulations to Nature Perfect on winning this year's Founder's Cup award.

#nwfgs #natureperfect #founderscup2024 #treetrunkdisplay #gardendesign #fairies

 

Seattle: A Fairy Garden for Grown Ups

I've made a new friend here in Seattle (yea! She has made my stay here so much more fun) and she invited me to her home to see her garden. I knew that she loved collecting blown glass and that she often attended art shows, but I really learned about "her eye" when I saw how artfully she has designed her outdoor living area. I loved it!

It was a little too cool and misty to sit outside that evening, but I fully intend to walk around on the patio and spend some quality time talking out there when I get the chance.  I was particularly drawn to the woods behind her garden. Enormous pine trees with long smooth trunks surrounded by fern - I could see into the woods for a long distance and there were a million shades of green.  I kept commenting on the woods and I realize now that I probably sounded funny to them.  

It reminded me of when we had a friend who had been living in Kazakhstan visit us. When we were leaving for dinner, I was telling him about the "signature pasta salads" at a restaurant we were going to.  He said he really just wondered if they'd have a salad of green lettuce. Um...yes?  He said that it was hard to get fresh produce that time of year in Kazakhstan and he couldn't wait to have "green lettuce."  I felt the same way in this beautiful Washington forrest.  I was supposed to be noticing the garden art (which I did love) but I couldn't stop talking about the trees.

Look at these glass flowers! Perfectly at home in this natural setting and a brilliant way to bring year round color to an outdoor space.  I had never seen art pieces like this on display in a private setting.  I had only seen them at art shows and when 50 pieces are together, they are beautiful but the color and movement is too overwhelming for me.  Here, when they are artfully arranged, I can see them exactly as they were intended and I love it! 

(2/19/16 Update: I just met the artist that made the flowers (in the first photo) at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle. Her name is Katy LaReau and you can buy her work here.

It is a fairy garden for grown ups. Bravo!