I promised you all a more in depth post from the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show and here it is! Although I will be posting several more times about the stunning garden displays and including beautiful pics that will make you salivate, I’m starting you off on the Top 3 displays from my perspective. Drum roll, please……
- Judges’ Favorite: Re-Generation “The World Without Us” Designed by Richard Radford and Sandy Ayers
This garden won a Gold Medal for garden creation, a Medal from the Garden Conservancy, a Goldengate Cup award and Best of Show. This was an intriguing garden in that it sought to answer the question, “What happens to a beautifully constructed garden years after it’s no longer cared for?” So you can see weeds poking up through the pavers and out the backside of the retaining wall, grasses that are overgrown, leaves scattered throughout and greenery sprouting on the roof. But what you also see is that the basic design is still in place. Although not my favorite, I was drawn to the innovation and clever development of the idea. Well done.
- Crowd Favorite: The Living Room Designed by Sean Stout and James Pettigrew.
You’ve probably seen this garden tweeted and blogging ten times over by now–it was that stunning. Although it helped that it was featured right as you walked through the doors of the San Mateo Event Center, everything about it was breathtaking and so-out-there different from any of the other displays that people, including me, were drawn to it over and over again. It’s a succulent “cube” surrounded by water that’s ringed with lights. You enter the cube by traversing stepping stones in the water and passing through the keyhole opening into this “living room”:
I don’t really know how sustainable this design is in terms of recreating it in “real life”, but it’s so cool and innovative that show goers couldn’t stay away from it. Inside and out, we kept circling around it and taking pictures from every angle. For their efforts, the designers won a well-deserved Gold Medal in garden creation.
- Jenny’s Favorite: Salvaged Creole Jazz Courtyard Designed by Dawn Engel.
This garden garnered a Gold Medal for garden creation, an award from the California Association of Nurseries and Gardens, and the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society award. Although I really, really loved the Crowd Favorite succulent cube above, I was just drawn to the lush quaintness of this garden. It’s colorful, exhuberant, joyful but at the same time, graciously restrained. New Orleans style can be so over-the-top in its visual assault, but this garden was not. The pic above is of the center “fountain” cleverly designed with string of pearls cascading out of alligator mouths. This fountain has also been tweeted and blogged enthusiastically, and here’s a close-up for better detail:
I can’t even tell you how much I love this garden–I love it so much that I’ve decided to use it as a model for my own balcony garden! I don’t have the space to have a center fountain, but I’m inspired by the large foliage plants, the succulents tucked in for texture, the playful colors and use of musical instruments as planters. I’ll post more about that as I make it a reality, but I have to say thanks to Dawn Engel for inspiring me to create in my own space! In my opinion, that is the beauty and strength of flower and garden shows–to push us into desiring more for our own gardens and to think of our own spaces in ways we never would have thought of before!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this first round of pictures and thoughts about the garden show here in San Francisco! I’m really looking forward to guiding you on a virtual tour in the next couple of days, so keep checking back for more updates.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
This is so awesome. Thanks for sharing for those of us that can’t go.
I can vouch for Jenny loving the Creole garden…she’s been online all morning trying to find ‘alligator heads’ on Craigs List….
Thanks, Rama! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the pics and posts.
Rebecca, I think I found an alligator head. I have to travel to the Florida Everglades and meet up with a guy named Mr. Big, but for 5 benjamins, it’s mine, baby! ; )
Enthusiastic commentary !
I loved the Creole Jazz garden the best. So much attention to detail.
Organic Mechanics never fails to inspire and create innovative designs.
I was bored to tears with the World without Garden. Seems like the judges were smitten with the seriously mundane. Blah. Give me some creative indulgence please.
Now I have to share the cup ( I won in 2008) with a boring weed infested non colorful armadillo crazed non garden.
Blah.
Michelle, I can’t believe I missed meeting you! Pooh. We will have to rectify this in the future. I’m kind of with you on the World without Garden–I understood why the judges chose it, but it wasn’t my favorite. I brought my niece to the show today and she said, “It’s not really doing anything for me, but it’s a bold move to design a garden that kind of looks bad.” Need we say more?
Don’t pay a lot for those alligator heads! You can seriously get them for a dime a dozen at souvenir shops all along the Gulf Coast. So I take it you think we’re going to have to get some for our New Orleans gardens, eh?
They’re awesome, but I think they might not QUITE work in my garden. I think I am going to use the pearls cascading everywhere, though. That’s a really good alternative to Spanish moss, which obviously isn’t hardy here and which I’m just not content to grow as a houseplant to bring indoors.
OK, here you go!: http://tinyurl.com/ya45zje
And for those readers whom I KNOW are thinking I’m an awful person, I’d like to point out the vast majority of souvenir gator heads are harvested sustainably and humanely, as icky as that idea may be.
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