As promised, here are more pics from the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show! It’s been an incredible week so far, and I’ve really looked forward to sharing my experience with you all. Although nothing but being present would actually do these gardens justice, just close your eyes, click your heels three times and say, “There’s no place like San Francisco, there’s no place like San Francisco…” and hopefully you will feel some of the magic that I have!
This is Keeyla Meadows’ design called “Habitat Dance with a Red-Headed Snake” and it won a Silver Medal for garden creation. Keeyla is known for her artwork featuring fantastic color palettes as you can see in the pic, and while some designers feel that this garden isn’t “serious design”, I appreciate the extreme creativity that shows through in Keeyla’s work. It’s not for the faint of heart, that’s fo shizzle.
Benjamin Goulart designed this garden called “Prehistoric Paradise”–very cool with ginormous palm trees, strong architectural plants, textural succulents and a huge dinosaur thrown in for good measure. It wasn’t one of the top designs, but I really enjoyed the primitive feel of the landscape.
“Pulling Up Daisies” by Tyler Rinehart made me both chuckle and scratch my head. Like, what the hell is this? A skatepark? It was odd–I kind of didn’t want to like it, but I did. Probably mostly I was trying to figure out how he got the arches to stay arched. The judges apparently liked it, too–it won a Pacific Horticulture Magazine award and a Silver Medal for garden creation.
This is the Victory Garden that was displayed outside by all the food vendors, which I thought was sort of genius. Have people mill around the display halls for a few hours, working up an appetite, then go outside and grab a teriyaki bowl while they sit on picnic tables by the Victory Garden, dreaming of planting edibles in their front yard. The garden did indeed show how it’s possible to have a beautiful, edible landscape in front of your house–just keep in mind that it’s planted to inspire and not to be emulated down to the detail. (It’s very overplanted with mint, for example, which will grow to exceed its space in no time at all. Then when your visitors come over, you can say “Welcome to my Mint Hell.” ) That being said, the garden did its job–yes, you can get rid of your lawn and grow a mix of herbs, vegetables and ornamentals and your Homeowner’s Association won’t ticket you, unless you live in a neighborhood that has the Lawn Nazi breathing down your back.
I’m planning one or two more posts about the show, so I invite you to keep coming back and enjoying photographs that will hopefully inspire you in your own space. If you can get to a Flower and Garden show in your own area, I really encourage you to do so. Don’t confuse it with the usually lame House and Garden shows, unless you’re really into decks, pools and industrial cleaners. Flower and Garden shows, when done well like the San Francisco one, make you want to run back as fast as you can to your yard and say, “Yes! We can!”
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I’ve been checking out the many posts on the show, and so far I think you and I are the only ones with a kind word for Keeyla’s garden. It was pretty universally trashed by Michelle D. and her commenters over at Garden Porn.
Not for the faint of heart – you called it on that one.
Hey Susan! I think her use of color is brilliant, actually. She’s an artist and it shows. While it might not be everyone’s taste, she had some solid design principles in place (contrast, texture, proportion).
Here’s the thing for me: maybe a lot of designers didn’t like it, but a lot of people did. This is the paying public, and they also have opinions and taste. I personally hated the Four Seasons garden that looked like a florist shop threw up, but a lot of older ladies loved it! So what if I didn’t? I don’t have to have anything like it at my place, but I’m quite sure it would make a bunch of other people happy. Isn’t that what your garden is supposed to do?
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