Flower and garden shows are always a great way to catch Spring Fever. They are almost aways held in the winter when the gardening business is slow. This allows for garden manufacturers to host booths, showing the latest in garden-related items including rare and unusual varieties. It also allows for professional landscapers to design and plant their gardens. This year’s San Francisco show will offer more than 450 commercial exhibitors, 23 large landscaped gardens, 30,000 orchids, koi, bonsai and the always-popular garden seminar series with more than 60 free lectures.
Flower and garden shows are always bright and warm, alive with thousands of flowers, already-blooming spring bulbs and even full-sized trees. Plop yourself down in any garden show in the country and you’ll likely see some of the common elements. Spectacular plants, gardens that make it all look easy, lectures and seminars by horticultural experts and a marketplace of the latest gardening gizmos.
But there are differences, says Duane Kelly, producer of both the San Francisco and Seattle shows. “The Northwest is much more conservative,” he says of the Seattle show, while in San Francisco, “some of the gardens are way out there, and people are more accepting of that. The different shows do take on a regional character.”
According to Kelly, people attend garden shows not just because they’re sick of winter. You can get ideas for your own gardens, learn from gardening experts – one session in San Francisco this year is titled, “No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!”
There’s a local connection, too. Jeannine Bogard of Goldsmith Seeds will be speaking at 1:15 p.m. on Thursday, March 21, on “How New Plants Are Introduced.” Renee Shepherd of Renee’s Garden in Felton will speak twice on March 22. All Points Landscape in Morgan Hill is helping to create one of the large display gardens, entitled, “Party for Two with a View.”
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