3 girls and a garden show.

Yesterday was our turn to visit the Northwest Flower and Garden show. My Mom, Sweet Pea and I attended the garden show together. I thought it was fun that three generations of gardeners got to enjoy the day together. Our first bit of luck came when two women handed us a ticket, and told us "it's an extra". Whoever they were it was such a generous gift and we were very appreciative.
Last year I did my post on the garden show on all of the water features, since that is one of my favorite parts of a garden. This year I noticed far fewer, there were more small bubbling type fountains and one that I think was supposed to be a natural looking swimming pool.
This year there was no real theme to the display gardens. There seemed to be a lot of natural looking displays with large boulders and evergreen trees. I noticed a few had recycled different things and used them from everything from cold frames to chicken coops.

The Northwest Bloom and Seattle Tilth display garden was one of my favorites. It was designed to look like a little farm in the city.

Here was one of the few water features I saw in the gardens. The little stream running from under the rain barrel. To the right you can see a little fenced area which held a few small goats. I noticed the use of lots of Carex and different grasses throughout this display.

One of my favorite ideas was the cold frame made with a recycled window frame painted a bright green.

Around the other side from the vegetable garden area was a chicken coop that looked like it was made from possibly and old tractor. This was one of at least three displays that had chickens in them. One used an old pickup as a chicken coop.

Hellebores were everywhere! I don't think there was one display without them. Many of the visitors were carrying Hellebores they had purchased in the plant market.

I liked the use of one mosaic tile in with the more plain aggregate pavers. This was from the Wizard of Oz themed garden.

Green roofs were also fairly popular.

I loved the window curtain of falling water. What I wasn't so sure about was the movie screen they had inside the outdoor room. It kind of takes away the feeling of being outside with a big screen movie playing in my opinion.

Garden art that would add year round interest here.

My Mom, Sweet Pea and I all decided this display by Fancy Fronds was our favorite. We talked for quite awhile to one of the creators. They had lots of color in this garden and much of it was garden art, painted pavers and glass art. Her explanation of the added color is to show inexpensive ways that we Pacific Northwesteners can have year round color. I know this garden is not for everyone, but to me it was a lot of fun. Perhaps being the mom of two young kids I could see how much fun a garden like this could be for a child to play in. There's always time to have a more grown up garden once they are older.

Some of the glass art amongst many of the ferns Fancy Fronds is known for. One of my few purchases was a pond float made by the same artist that made this glass art.

Another corner of the display. I love the Birds Nest Spruce by the metal Quail.

I always enjoy going through all of the retail displays and the plant market. We were mostly just looking, but did see a lot interesting things. There were quite a few glass artists there. I mentioned above that I bought a blown glass pond float. My other small purchase was a Columbia Lily which is a native lily here. I'm trying to add more native plants into my garden, especially the backyard. Sweet Pea used her own money to buy a Fritallaria that is a native here as well. I don't know too many 11 year old girls that spend their hard earned money on plants!
We three gardening girls had a great day together at the garden show starting with a free ticket and ending with sharing a piece of double chocolate cake; and of course lots of gardens and plants in between.
We've heard that unlike this year which had no overall theme, next years theme will be Fairy Tales.