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Although this could very well be a picture of me finding a new treasure at a favorite nursery, it's actually an illustration by David Catrow for a children's book called Plantzilla.

Monday, January 26, 2015

The Tacoma Home and Garden Show Part One

This Weekend, Alison (Bonney Lassie) her husband Nigel, and I met at the Tacoma Home and Garden Show.  It's always a joy to see them and we had a blast taking in the event.  I was uncharacteristically early, perhaps because the venue was only a nine minute drive from my house, and when I arrived, there were already folks queueing up to enter. 



There were a lot of home improvement ideas (it is a Home and Garden show after all.) This display of pet doors for sliding glass panels was perhaps the cutest.  Nice to know that your stuffed animals can come and go as they wish.  (Tip:  if they stay outside too long in the Pacific Northwest, they start to smell funny and grow moss.)

The folks at Whitworth Pest Solutions, a fine company whose services I've used and with which I've  been very pleased,  brought along these eye catching displays of bugs from around the world.  

Yikes!  Wouldn't want to run into some of these bad boys!

There were several fetching waterfall displays.  Unfortunately, I forgot the name of the company whose work this was.

Alison did not seem amused when I asked her if she had crabs. I meant in her garden.  What could she have been thinking?


 It's always a pleasure to see Carman (Mad Mozaics) and her lovely work.

Alison and I each came home with one of these skulls.

This show-stopping table and benches are made of rescued redwood roots.  (The trees had already died.)

 Marenakos Rock Center always does a nice large display.

The glass-like surface of the polished rock begs to be touched!


Can you imagine having this in your garden? 

Olympic Landscape Design also has a large display garden each year.  Interesting to see the Cyclamen coum!

Thrilling to see "fiddlestix" by the talented and wonderful Barbara Sanderson (Glass Gardens Northwest.)

This water feature is hidden from view until one actually walks into the garden and acts as a lovely focal point to ponder from the patio seating behind it.

Black Mondo Grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens') with Yellow Twig Dogwood is a great and tasteful combination.  I would have chosen Red Twig Dogwood and maybe a screaming red pot, perhaps spray painted the lantern purple and thrown some blue crushed glass around the base of the pot.  You see, tackiness like mine can't be learned but I've heard that it can be overcome.

Another distinct pleasure of the event was meeting Chavliness, who has been commenting on on my blog for quite some time, and the owner of her garden!  She'd even brought me some orange Alstroemeria seeds which I'm very excited to have and will do my best to not kill!  Thank you so much Chava! After we chatted a bit, their question was, "Where are the plants?" (My kind of People!)  More on that in tomorrow's post but for now, it's time to relax with a beverage of your choice

Some warm milk perhaps?


22 comments:

  1. The company is what made your day. Is there perhaps a trend back to more restrained display in a garden?

    On the other hand, I googled to see if there are home and garden shows anywhere near here. Yawn. I would not drive 60 miles one way and pay to see some groupings of common potted plants and a lot of home security and so on.

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    1. You are so right! There may be a trend back to more restrained display in gardens but this show, having evolved into more of a home/remodeling/adding a "landscape" kind of event usually has displays on the more conservative side. Tacoma has traditionally been quite a bit more conservative than Seattle so they may have also been sensitive to their audience.

      I agree with you, I wouldn't drive that far to see the sort of thing you describe either.

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  2. Getting to make the rounds with you was the best part of the show. The dearth of plant vendors was so disappointing. Well, the NWFGS is coming up very soon, and I'm really looking forward to that. Another great season of gardening is right around the corner.

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    1. It was wonderful to see & talk with you and Nigel again! While the dearth of plant vendors was indeed disappointing, the ones that were there were fun. Looking forward to the NWFGS, The Portland Yard, Garden, and Patio Show, and others. Heronswood is having an early spring sale on March 28.and Hortlandia is on April 18. My head is swimming just thinking about it!

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  3. Two weeks til the NWFG Show!!!! Nice that you got a warm-up.

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    1. I'm so looking forward to the show and seeing you!

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  4. I'd want someone to distract that alligator (or is that a crocodile?) before I touched the smooth rock. I like those green fiddlesticks better than some of the other colors I've seen. I should see if there is anything interesting happening in my area.

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    1. The alligator/crocodile seemed quite sleepy. Maybe some sort of winter hibernation?

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  5. The lack of plant vendors and displays was disappointing, but I knew you'd manage a post anyway. You have a way of finding the silver lining. The Marenakos rocks are awe inspiring as always. They provide rocks to the entire NWFG show. I'm glad to have run into you and Alison: that was worth my trip, and since I couldn't leave empty handed I purchased a miniature conifer.

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    1. It was great fun meeting you and I will definitely let you know when I'll be near your garden next as I'd love to see it. If you'll email me your email address or phone number it might be faster than trying to communicate here about that. (In the about me section, if you click on view my complete profile, there is a "contact me" button which will put you through to my email. Thanks again for finding us and for the alstroemeria seeds!

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  6. Alison with crabs, made me laugh out loud! Have to say their showcase of hard landscaping isn't bad at all!

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    1. Gee, it would probably make her itch...There are some extremely fine hard landscape companies in this area!

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  7. These indoor garden shows always leave me wanting more, as everything seems too artificial and overdone. The waterfall under the "can you imaging having this in your garden?" caption though, with those huge natural boulders -- wonderful! There's no colored underwater lighting or tumbled glass mulch hidden anywhere in there, is there?

    Those mosaic skulls freak me out for some reason. Did you get the tiny-eyed one? Creepy.

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    1. I love the natural look that that display did so well but I'm also a fan of the funky, art- filled, colorful garden. Some of the show gardens at big shows are, indeed pretty artificial looking but I think of them being like a flower arrangement, highly artificial but wonderful to see.

      Yes, I got the creepy small-eyed skull. For the moment, it's sitting not to far from my severed baby head under glass. I've decided, at Nigel's suggestion, to call him Yorick. "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
      of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy..."

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  8. Not bad as this type of show goes. I love the stone with the polished top - I wonder how much it would cost to ship that down this way? The fiddlestix display was also very attractive.

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    1. I'm sure that the post office has a flat rate box that would work. Check out their website to be really inspired http://marenakos.com/main.html

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  9. Wow....so many unusual things....re the bugs, EEK! I loved the mosaic work and the wooden furniture.....these events are brilliant places for ideas.xxx

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  10. You are right, great places for ideas and to dream. Every now and then I think that moving to a warmer climate would be grand for the amazing year-round flora but when presented with fauna like this, staying right here seems like a better idea!

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  11. The garden events look so much fun! I love those green glass things, I like how they look with the plants.

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  12. Haha - the fact that you call him Yorick made me laugh out loud! It seems to me that a lot of those shows have gotten heavy on the home improvement at the expense of the plant vendors - which I too think is a shame.

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  13. There were some nice things to look at. Whets my appetite for what's coming up.

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Thanks so much for taking the time to comment! I love to hear your thoughts.