Spring Comes Early to the NW Flower and Garden Show

We interrupt this winter to bring you the Northwest Flower and Garden Show!  Yes, it’s February – time again to head to the Convention Center where spring is alive and its fragrance fills the air!  I did that yesterday and filled my senses with the brilliant reds and yellows in my favorite display gardens.

I loved the Pacific Fire Vine Maple with its beautiful red bark,

next to the yellow twig dogwood which pairs nicely with it.

I was also happy to rest my eyes on this calming white garden, one I might actually pull off myself.

Not that I try to replicate what I see at the Show; the gardens are always too lavish for mere mortals to imitate.  But I do get inspired and always come home with a few tips or names of new plants to try.   I also go to shop.  There are hundreds of vendors selling their wares – plants and seeds and garden tools,  art,  jewelry, antiques, and books – I can’t say I wasn’t tempted by these.

My best purchase was a new hummingbird feeder which is already out and ready to feed those flying jewels.

So there you have it: another year of the Northwest Flower and Garden Show, one of the largest in the country and still going strong after almost 30 years.  Another year of inspiration and a reminder that spring is near: it’s time to return to the garden. So I’ve started my to do list, mundane though it may be:  thin out the herbs, transplant the roses, prepare the vegetable bed, and tend to my apple trees in hopes of getting more than the one I got last year. (Yes, you heard that right.)

Still, wasn’t it a beauty?  There’s always hope when spring is here.

~ Susanne