2007 Northwest Flower & Garden Show

Some pictures of our exhibit at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show in 2007

BEAST IN THE GARDEN: MARGINAL MADNESS

The inspiration for this year's display comes from the colorfully painted carved wooden animals from the Mexican state of Oaxaca.   In addition to using some of the real sculptures we have created some life-size ones for the show.  Some are done over topiary forms and some over taxidermy forms.  We strive to create garden artifacts that are affordable and can be done without highly specialized skills and tools.  One of the comments we have been hearing at the show for years is "Isn't that wonderful, but I can't afford it." 

            Since we are growers and not landscapers the other major interest we have in building a display is to introduce and educate the gardening public to a wide array of plants.  The second most asked question after "What is that plant?" is "Is it hardy here?".  This year our plant labels will reflect hardiness with a color coded system.  Green will indicate cold hardiness to zone 8, yellow will indicate marginal hardiness, and orange will indicate not cold hardy.  Since our plant list usually runs to six pages I provide the list online on my web-site breaking the plants into categories, such as trees and shrubs, perennials, bulbs, and ferns.  This year I will further separate the groups by their cold hardiness. 

            We are fortunate to be able to borrow plants from Cistus Nursery, Henry's Plant Farm, Courting Frogs, Steamboat Island Nursery, and most likely a few more.  We hope that our efforts to bring in unusual well grown plants from local specialty nurseries will encourage gardeners to support these small growers and help keep plant diversity alive.   The same is true of the local artists who continue to work with us and create magical art on a shoestring budget.

            Elizabeth Ford-Ortiz, BETZ,  is back with us fashioning the larger than life Oacacan inspired animal sculptures.  Elizabeth was responsible for the many soft sea creatures that graced our award winning undersea 2001 exhibit "The Octopus' Garden: Gardening from the Mind's Eye". 

            Kevin Wheeler, Haptonstall Designs, will be testing his skills at creating new metal cut-out sculpture and aiding in garden construction.

            Milagros, a retail Pike Place enthic art store, will be loaning us authentic Oaxacan scultptures to use in the garden.