Garden spot

Talk about sensory overload. Every one of the many Spokane gardeners I met at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show in Seattle last week, had an almost permanent smile on their face and many said the same thing, “So much to see, so little time.”

There was definitely a lot to see at this year’s show, just like there always is.

Each of the 26 show gardens was unique and full of ideas that could enhance any garden. As unique as each garden was though, there were some strong gardening themes that connected many of them.

One key element was the use of recycled materials such as stone, wood, old windows, pipes, glass and castoff building materials. One display even featured large drain pipes and light globes once used in some of Seattle’s parks. Some of these unlikely garden elements were used as construction materials and others simply as art objects.

In the “Feel the Heat Garden,” created by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Seattle Tilth, recycled materials such as old windows, scrap metal and chunks of concrete wall, were used to create a greenhouse that was heated and cooled by manipulating its heat-storing materials and changing its creative ventilation. The structure also boasted a green roof planted with drought tolerant grasses that could absorb as much as 70 percent of rainfall, to help maintain even temperatures inside the greenhouse. The windows could be opened like giant wings to expose the plants to sunlight on good days. This eco-greenhouse was definitely a favorite of the crowd.

Functionality figured prominently in several of the display gardens and designers frequently included creative spaces for sitting and interacting within the larger gardens.

In the “Garden in Motion – A Northwest Kinetic Garden” created by Falling Waters Design of Seattle, a sitting space included a fire pit that made it possible for garden visitors to enjoy the garden even when the weather is less than ideal. In several gardens, water features with just the right amount of water movement provided a filter for street and city noise.

In keeping with the eco-friendly trend, many of the gardens were designed using sustainable landscape techniques. Sustainable landscapes are designed to be low maintenance, use water efficiently, and they don’t need a lot of fertilizers or chemicals to stay healthy and provide color and intrigue year round. Native Northwest plants were used prominently in many gardens thus reducing the need for special care and scarce resources like water.

Another thing to note is that grass lawns are out. Low growing ground covers like thyme, dwarf mondo grass and other low or creeping plants were used in place of the traditional high maintenance and water guzzling lawn.

In the lower-maintenance department, many of the designers used plants with colored leaves and stems and interesting textures to bring color and visual interest into the garden, Instead of beds filled with flowers.

The “In The Backyard Retreat” garden created by Wells Nursery and A-lluminating Waterfalls and Exotic Gardens of Mount Vernon, Wash., and Land Improvements of Issaquah, Wash., several varieties of red-leaved Japanese maples and varieties of yellow and red twig dogwood with brightly colored trunks and branches were planted in a bold mix. By using these kinds of plants, the garden maintains color throughout the year instead of just the period the flowers bloom. Also, there’s little or no need for deadheading and fertilization. Most of these plants don’t need anything more than a spruce up in the spring and some infrequent trimming during their growth season to stay looking good.

The Northwest Flower and Garden Show has always been about these kinds of inspiring ideas. Until now though, you’d miss out if you didn’t get to go. Not so any more.

Sunset Publications has gathered some of the best ideas from past shows in Seattle and the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show, in a new book that was released at the show.

Edited by Kathleen Brenzel, senior garden editor for Sunset Magazine, and written by Mary-Kate Mackey, a freelance writer whose work often appears in Sunset, the “Sunset’s Secret Gardens” has more than 100 photographs featuring some of the very best gardens.

“It was something that seemed its time had come,” said Mackey. “From the beginning it was about leading edge ideas. Flower shows are places people can experiment.” She went on to say that designers are willing to try things at a show that they couldn’t out in the real world. At a show like this, people can see how it works before they commit to a big change or a new design in their own yards.

To help organize your garden dreaming, the book is divided into sections labeled playful, romantic, dramatic and restful. This makes it easy to focus your ideas on a particular theme. Each section then features several gardens, broken down into their key elements, so you can get a feel for how the garden came together. In some examples, the discussion focuses on the plants and art pieces. In others, the focus is seating spaces or paving and water elements

A unique feature of the book is the “What Makes It Work” section at the end of each chapter. Mackey referred to these sections as nutshell landscape design courses that actually point out with arrows in the pictures, why the colors, plants, water and other elements work in that specific design.

“It’s very much a hands-on book, it’s very much a primer of great ideas,” she said.

Mackey said that this is a book for all levels of gardeners.

“Certainly it is accessible for a beginner, but I also think that it is it available for a sophisticated gardener as well because the ideas run the gambit,” said Mackey.