Seattle

The Beginning of Spring

The 2014 Northwest Flower and Garden show opened my season of garden shows.  This made my second trip to this show. It is one of my favorites.  It is not all about just flowers.  It is a time to learn and renew friendships that were made at other shows, plus meeting new gardeners and writers.  The show theme this year was "Art in Bloom".

 

Pike Street

I spent four days covering every inch of the show.  I needed all of that time. The show covers six acres, so comfortable shoes are a must.

We finally arrived in Seattle, after two days of cancelled and missed flights. My daughter, Kylee Baumle, traveled with me.  It is always nice be with someone when things aren't going smoothly. We were picked up at the airport by our hostess, Danielle Smith Ernest, and her husband, Adam. We met Danielle a few years ago at other shows and became friends. They took us to this delightful Thai restaurant.  They were making cute little dumplings in a window for all of us to see.  The food was wonderful, as well as the conversation. We had a lot of catching up to do, as girls do.  We spent the night in the her lovely home outside Seattle.

Danielle's Home

Chefs

Dumplings

The next morning Danielle drove us to the amazing Molbaks, a wonderful garden and plant center.  We had a lovely lunch in their garden, then later shopped in this very seductive garden center. There was a wonderful pot that had my name on it, but shipping would have been the price of the pot.  I still want....I did purchase among other things, two hellebores that I bared rooted to transport home in my suitcase.  I will tell you later this spring my success story, or not.

Molbaks

Hellebore

Hellebore

Beautiful

                                                 
 Danielle drove us to our hotel in downtown Seattle, just one block from the convention center, where we would be attending the show.

Jenny Peterson, Kylee's co-writer, had already checked in.  The two of them together were doing two presentations at the show, one on Thursday and one on Friday.  I will tell you about their presentation later.

 Our first day at the show started with an early Tweet Up.  It was a time the Garden Writers renewed friendships and made new ones.  This was a time to photograph the displays before the show was opened to the public.

Display Garden

Display Garden

Display Garden

Display Garden

The gardens were designed to present the trends in gardening.  Whatever the size of your garden there was something that you could adapt to your own garden.  They were fully landscaped living spaces.  I loved the plant choices both, flowers and trees. The hardscape and art was fabulous. A favorite of mine was an altered Dawn Redwood "Miss Grace". She was $2,700 and just stunning.

"Miss Grace"

There were display gardens, the Marketplace, with 350 exhibitors, educational programs, over 100 in all.  I covered as many as I could. There was a play garden for children and their parents.

This is the second largest flower show in the US, second to the Philadelphia Flower Show that runs March 1-9th.

This was the the 26th Anniversary of the Northwest Flower Show.

I will continue talking about this show on my next post.

Louise