The Garden Part of the Tacoma Home and Garden Show

We've had a peek at the vintage market and the home part of the show was great if one were looking for services of that sort.  Unfortunately the plant vendors have dwindled to two or three:

Woodlawn Nursery brought up a lot of fun yard art, including that done by a couple of personal favorites, Fred Conlon and Bob and Melanie Delaney  but not many plants.

B & D Lilies from Port Townsend had plenty of bulbs on hand and beautiful, fragrant bouquets of lilies.

Mak Lilies and Perennials from Stayton, Oregon had lots of happy and healthy looking roots, tubers, bulbs, rhizomes, corms...

There were some landscape companies present as well but two set up large garden spaces as they have each year.  Olympic Landscape and Irrigation (website here) and Marenakos Rock Center (here.)  You may remember that Marenakos is the supplier of all of the rocks, some huge, used in the Northwest Flower and Garden Show gardens.  Kuddos to both companies for continuing to anchor the garden part of the Tacoma Home and Garden Show.  

First up is the Olympic Landscape garden.  

 Which included this  cabin or rustic design studio.

A drafting table inside the studio bearing the garden's design.   I thought they did all that sort of thing on the magic typewriter with the television attached (computer) these days.

The back of the studio facing the garden.

Great garden structure.

A little Tillandsia usneoides (Spanish Moss) makes everything better.

Central water feature. 

That's an awfully big egg for such a small bird!

I could be very comfortable in this garden because nothing needs to be done.  Not a weed in sight, no over planted, overgrown, sad looking beds begging to be re done, even the kitty, with his own chair, never needs to be fed.

Thanks, Olympic, for so many years of gardens at the show!

At Marenakos, rocks are their specialty and they do them extremely well!  

I dig the shape of the roof of this structure.  Would that be considered a gazebo?  Notice the silver travel trailer behind. 

This garden couldn't be any more pacific northwest!  Okay, there could be a Starbucks in it but other than that...

Some other fun stuff:

Gary Barber, Octopus Studios Stained Glass, whose work I greatly admire, was in attendance. To see more of his work, click the link and select Portfolio. 

Concrete Works came all the way from Spokane. 

So, you're supposed to drink compost tea, right?   Love the mugs!

Unfortunately I forgot the name of this place but lots of bamboo products!

Why doesn't this yucca ever look this good in my garden?

Rusty metal trees from Rusty Birds are way cool!

A great idea for an old window sash of which I have several.  Hope they'll be at the Seattle Show!

Hope you enjoyed this little warm-up for the Portland and Seattle Shows!