You’ll see plenty of color, crowds and cake at the big Northwest Flower & Garden Festival, going on right now in Seattle. The annual gardening season kickoff turns 30 this year — hence the cake — and fills the Washington State Convention Center — hence the crowds. The opulent show gardens are the big draw — hence the color.
I always enjoy the show gardens, although this year I saw hardly a nod to edibles, which is disappointing. I get it — it is hard to force tomatoes to fruit in winter. But when I see edibles incorporated into the lush landscapes, I am more inspired to imagine elements of the fancy designs into my own garden. Maybe next year.
It’s also great fun to see friends from the gardening world, like other garden writers Lorene Edwards Forkner of Pacific Horticulture or Laura Watson, formerly of Plant Amnesty, who knows more about clematis than I thought any one brain could hold. She’s sharing her expertise at a seminar, another important segment of the event for me — and not just because I’ll be doing the same. If you’re at the show on Sunday, look for my talk “Eat Your Year: Month-by-Month Actions for Continuous Edibles” at 4:15 p.m.
Vendors performing the difficult task of staffing a booth for five long days get my admiration too. I like chatting with Charlie and Carol of Charlie’s Greenhouse, the folks at Diggit and other local tool manufacturers, the always-helpful University Bookstore staff, and the volunteers at the non-profit booths, like aforementioned Plant Amnesty and the Washington Native Plant Society.
Far beyond the colorful gardens, the show is truly a wide-ranging gateway to the gardening year.
Here are images of my day at the show yesterday.
The Arboretum Foundation garden showcased plants of the Witt Winter Garden, plus a well-painted arbor and a reproduction of the new loop trail. It opens officially in April.
A giant chess set, luxurious grill setup, and sculptural slices of ancient tree trunks combine for this imposing garden.
Orchids and a vanilla vine (in pot on left) surround a funky shed in the tropical Vanilla Farm garden.
The Plant Amnesty booth was busy. It’s heartening to see the organization doing well after the tragic loss of its founder, Cass Turnbull, last year.
The folks at Diggit have created another comfortable tool — a hardened stainless steel hori-hori with their signature colorful soft handle.
A tiny terrarium sits in the window of the convention center’s skybridge, with Pike Street below and Pike Place Market in the distance.
This Catlin Elm was raised from a cutting by American bonsai forefather John Yoshio Naka, beginning in 1970. Amazing.
A 30th dinner party is set in this show garden to celebrate the show’s 30th anniversary. Here’s to 30 more years!
The festival’s own show garden resembled a layer cake of colorful flowers and plants, enhanced by art-glass candle flames.
Cheers to 30 years, and here’s to 30 more!
We are having a White Christmas here in Seattle, with a gift to my garden (and me) of a nice blanket of sparkling snow.
Here are images from my garden today.
Merry Christmas!
The beets are tiny and might handle this cold, but I should have put ends on this double-window cold frame for better protection.
Cold frames in the background protect greens, but lots of brassicas fend for themselves under the snow.
The big cold frame in the back and the smaller Triangle Tunnel in the front both contain salad greens. I won’t open them until our warmer weather returns, but the tender greens should be fine. Snow is a great insulator!
A miniature forest of salad greens. Chittering songbirds cleaning the remaining bugs off my Lacinato kale trees. Delightful late-blooming flowers. Seedlings protected for winter growth. This is my garden at Thanksgiving.
Mixed salad greens, including arugula, bok choi, tatsoi, lettuce and Asian mustards are flourishing in this bed, and getting mowed down regularly for salads.
Sparrows, black-capped chickadees and a rosy finch (obscured, center) gather for a meal of bugs on my Lacinato/palm tree kale.
I’m experimenting with winter growth of a cabbage under cover inside this giant water bottle. There’s another one uncovered right next to it.
A purple sprouting broccoli and some winter radishes grow in front of a fleece-covered tunnel containing spinach.
Lacinato/palm tree kale plants grow against a bamboo trellis which held up cherry tomato plants last summer.
A pot of spinach covered in garden fleece sits in front of an espaliered Akane apple tree that still has its leaves.
The last of the fall carrot crop sits in front of a cold frame made of two window sashes, wired together. The easy cold frame holds overwintering turnips.
I sought signs of vernalis in my garden today. Figured it would be an appropriate thing to do on the vernal equinox, also known as the first day of spring.
Vernal literally means “of the spring,” from the Latin vernalis. And I’ve long been known to toss around Latin phrases just to show off. Carpe diem! Although anyone who tasks me with plant i.d. can quickly tell that my gardener’s Latin is suspect, to say the least. Caveat emptor.
But on the first day of spring, as the lengths of day and night are at their equinoctial point, is a good occasion, ipso facto, to assess vernalis.
In a walk after lunch (post meridiem) I found evidence in many facets of my edible garden, which should not have surprised me. Every spring that I have been alive, and to my knowledge every spring throughout eternity, sprouts have risen and buds have popped in flore as the earth rises again to life. Ad nauseum, ad infinitum.
And here, in images, is the documentum. Q.E.D.*
Corn salad (mache) growing wild in the mulch in front of my compost bin chopping block (which itself has been colonized quite nicely by volunteers).
Early Red Treviso radicchio overwintered in a cloche and is spicing up our spring salads while Viola tricolor (Johnny jump-up) kept it company.
This is probably a cabbage, sprouted up from a stray brassica seedling. I have no idea if it will make a head. if not, I’ll probably start eating the leaves.
This volunteer, clearly a Brassica but not clearly what type, popped up on the edge of a bed. Looks like a cross between collards and dinosaur kale. Also looks like good eating!
The plant is healthy but our cool late winter weather has delayed the buds on the Purple Sprouting broccoli. But they are coming.
Lacinato (dinosaur) kale going to flower. It was planted too late last year to reach “full frame” before winter, but we’ll eat it soon and pull it up to make room for something new.
* Disclosure: I had to look up some of those phrases — okay, most of them — to make sure I was not misusing them too drastically.
Sculptures, fountains and water features blend gracefully in garden landscapes, and the Northwest Flower & Garden Show display gardens showcased inspiring combinations.
Massive square stones stacked into an imposing fountain, which is skirted by blooming daffodils, greet visitors to the show gardens.