Once again our son is showing his work at this Garden Show. Stop and say Hi! and tell him you're from the CA Garden Web and that his Mom sent you.
We just got the following email from him:

Greetings from Griswak Copper!!!

Copper kelp plants and copper coral...
accents to an amazing "underwater" succulent garden
presented by ORGANIC MECHANICS in this year's
San Francisco Flower and Garden Show
at the Cow Palace, March 21 27th.

I am going this year, having missed the last three due to a bad foot causing painful walking. An old friend says this may be her last year and I want to at least see one of her gardens. Also Jeff Lowenfels will be there and I am such a fan after having read his book on the soil food web I want to meet him and hear him speak. Bromeliads are a new interest so I will look for the societies display. Al

I can't go this year, my first year missing it. :o( I am trying not to let anyone see me cry.

I missed it last year because of the dogs' diarrhea extravaganza, and this year was scheduled to go yesterday but came down with my first cold & sore throat in years (sniffle)!

I may still make the trek on Sunday. Has anyone spotted anything else that's particularly worth going to see?

I just got back and boy was it fun. I go every year and enjoy it each time but this year was especially good because the display gardens were fantastic! For the first time in several years they broke away from the weird and ugly (computer cds hanging from trees and other strange and unnatural objects that don't belong in gardens). They're back to beautiful garden designs, TG! This year's gardens were still very creative. My favorite was the Monet painter's garden with its *impression* of Giverney. However I have to admit the best should go to UNDER THE SEA. It was amazing. The bromeliad display brought out all the wonderful colors of these unique looking plants, it too was unlike anything I had seen before. The designers were able to show their creativity without resorting to the ridiculous and that's what impressed me the most. One of my favorites was the Florist's display with incredible floral arrangements...a very whimsical display I think they appropriately titled "Candy". The dog made of mums was too cute! Last year I took only a couple photos but this year we used up one battery with all the shots we took so that tells me we must have liked what we saw a lot more this year than in prior years.

My tastes run very traditional, I like the Provence look, english gardens, cottage style. So naturally I'm not going to love some of the contemporary designs but they were quite nice this year too. There was something for everyone...unlike prior years where it felt like there was too much of a comnon theme. I remember a couple years ago it was all about the Spanish style and last year overdid the modern. Last year I wondered what happened to the plants, the objects took center stage while the plants took a back seat. It was more well-rounded this year. But can we please have one garden show without a designer parking an old car in the middle of his garden? That's been done so many times. This year it was Greenlee's turn. The red 50's car had no relation to his display other than to add a splash of color to his usual mix of prairie grasses.

Here's what is drastically different about this year's show. They omitted an entire building, the one you used to walk down the ramp to get to. The poor guy selling the kettle corn was moved to the entrance, a terrible location that even he admitted was bad for his business. The food court was squished to another outside area and scattered about the cow palace. The specialty rooms are all gone. The bonsai room is gone, the floral arrangements are gone, the orchid room is gone. They took a much smaller representation of these groups and moved them into the market place where they were packed in with everything else. I saw one table with 3 bonsai plants. If there were more than that I didn't notice. I guess visitor evaluation forms gave a thumbs down to these specialty rooms and they decided this year to abandon them. While they were never my favorite places to see I still liked walking through them. The show has become pretty much just a place to shop and to look at the display gardens.

I bought even more stuff than last year...this show attracts the best vendors. It's hard to walk away at the end of the day without an armload of goodies!

I can post a couple photos if anyone wants to see a sample of the display gardens.

Thanks for the report, flyingflower, I would love to see photos!

I wasn't able to make it this year (Darn! I really wanted to see what Digging Dog bought to the show). I consoled myself by running up to Alden lane Nursery in Livermore and spending waaaaaaay more than I should have, but darn it! I needed some consolation prize.

wanda

We enjoyed the show. I met my old friend Michele of Cultivate design, a gold metal winner again this year, and I appreciated the big Hug. Stopped by the Bromeliad Society garden and had a nice visit with Ted Kipping, manning the booth. He is an arborist who wears a lot of hats in the horticulture world. We enjoyed the seminar with Jeff Lowenfels where he was able to bring to life with a lot of humor, his new book 'Teaming with Microbes'. As interesting as he was his book is even more interesting and is going to change the way most of us garden. Al

Here are some pictures of The Painter's Garden (little Giverney)

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Here's a couple pix of the Florists display garden where they turned flowers into cute animals...

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This display garden was stunning, the doors glistened like gold they were so beautiful (but of course my old camera doesn't capture it)

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My camera did not capture the beauty and sparkle of Under The Sea. Succulents give the elusion of underwater plant life! I bet this one will win Best In Show.

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flyingflower: Thank you for posting the photos of "Under the Sea" . Our son is part of this display ---his is the Copperwork, and so I got to see the display. And, yes, they did get Best in Show.

That Under the Sea garden looks great! For those of you who want to see one in Southern California, there is a large one as a permanent display garden at Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas. It was designed and installed by Bill Teague and also Jeff Moore of Solana Succulents. Jeff did one a couple of years before that was a huge hit at the San Diego County Fair and then did another version as an invited exhibitor at the Philadelphia Flower Show.

westelle if your son made the clamshell chairs he is both an artist and a talented metal worker. I wanted to get up closer to photo the details of construction but could not. My wife said "make a couple for me". Al

The "Under the Sea" display makes me wish I had attended this year! Great job indeed!

Al: Ken didn't make the chairs; I believe he said they were purchased. I can have him find out from where if you like.

As stage set design, the Undersea Garden is a highly creative effort that deserved to win. As a practical garden that could actually grow in the SF Bay Area, it would have to be edited to take out the plants that don't like our winters, and the client would need to be made aware that plants were chosen for effect, rather than ultimate size and adaptability.

Susi added a link to an actual outdoor garden down in Encinitas that is a living garden, and reflects the real world concerns of pulling off these same effects in a garden built to last for more than 5 days. Thanks, Susi for posting this, I haven't had the chance to see this yet, but already know Bill Teague's own garden and the reputation of Solano Succulents.

I also wonder that anyone would think that those chairs are actually usable! Another piece of stage design that isn't actually practical or even usable...

From the comments on this thread, it sounds like the show this year managed to cover most of the bases, and had something for everybody to enjoy. As one of the garden designers myself, I wish I had had more of an opportunity to actually talk design with the public, as often happens with gardens on display for garden tours. The nature of the event doesn't really encourage discussion, but does provide an opportunity for people to get together in celebration of plants, gardens and design.

I don't know if the average visitor realizes that none of the display garden designs would actually be practical in the real world, but instead are designed for a temporary display and to create the illusion of a mature garden. And like Cinderella at midnight, they will all start to be dismantled at the close of the show this evening, with only the recorded image left as testimony of their brief existence, until new gardens unfold next spring.

I had a royally good time. Got a break from the kids (hubby stayed home to look after them) so even a foodfight would have been good...
I bought a pirate's booty of beautiful things, mostly hard-to-find bulbs, but I was quite impressed with some of the decorative things some of the vendors had. I rather enjoyed the talk about personalizing your space with decorative elements and design-- right up my alley.
I took lots of pictures, and agree that the 'under the sea' garden was fascinating! And while I rather liked the individual plants in the 'to die for' garden, I didn't get his vision. Yes, so they're poisonous-- so what? But I did kinda like the way-up-in the sky martini glass looking planters he used.

Amanda 'romando'

It looked like it was a lot of fun. Thanks to all who posted pictures, great stuff!

I took lots of pics and put them in a photoshow. Please enjoy
http://photoshow.comcast.net/watch/wY8Gk7iE
Dottie

Dottie: thanks for allowing us to view your photos... in a most interesting slide show.

Thanks Dottie, that was fun to revisit the show through your pictures.

Bahia...I would think anyone who gardens will realize that these displays are like fashion shows, the designer puts together a wild outfit to attract attention but doesn't expect customers to actually buy the ensemble. The intent is to generate interest in his/work work and not to take the clothes they see on the runway literally. But I wonder how many people actually think you can pack baby plants together and expect them to grow to maturity without crowding each other out? Like puppies, you wish they stayed that small!

In the marketplace there is a stand that sells Antique Seed Packets in frames. Dottie has them in her slide show.
I remember buying these 20 years ago at a local art fair and I've seen them at fairs and shows ever since. Has someone stopped to question when these people are going to run out of the seed packets? After decades one would expect this rare item to have sold out by now. Each time I run across their booth at a fair I ask myself is this on the up and up?

I was watching Henry's Garden this weekend on Channel 4 because I knew he would have a camera at the show (since there was a Henry's Garden display). He said something I didn't know and maybe some of you hadn't heard either. The display garden with the Indian theme (chair and giant door, I have a photo of it above) was put together at the last minute. The people who were supposed to have a display in that spot backed out at the last minute and these folks agreed to put their display in only 3 DAYS! Can you imagine! Henry said designers and their contractors work for MONTHS on these gardens and here these folks were able to put a gorgeous display together in only a few days. That's an impressive feat.

Does anyone know who the awards were given out to? I looked on the website and they haven't posted them yet. Who won people's choice? Who won best garden as voted by members of the landscape design community?

At the show I talked to Davis Dalbok, the owner of Living Green in SF. He is the one who designed the whole garden with the giant copper door from Morocco(on loan from a client in Hawaii, who changed her mind about using it as a ceiling piece after seeing this show garden). If any of you are interested in tropical plants and decoration, I strongly encourage you to visit his store/nursery in south of market area. He has enough pan-tropical goodies to fill two or three gardens like this, but you need to have a big fat bank account to pay for them. Fortunately for us, he does not charge admission to his nursery, and even the atrium and plant bed outside the building (SF design center) are lavishly landscaped with lots of exotics.