So...The San Francisco Flower and Garden Show

Sigh. Was it just me this year? I felt totally unengaged. Unispired. Uninterested. Don't get me wrong, there were some interesting moments. I'll show those in a bit. But overall it was boring. Not even silly enough to poke fun it. SAFE. Safe and boring.

I suppose the most interesting garden this year was John Greenlee's crazy grass jungle. It certainly was the most fun to walk through. And it certainly wasn't sticking to a "safe" and expected planting palette.

The garden had some neat details like the stone lighting, as well as Marcia Donahue's fantastic ceramics.

Now, I just hate to say this, but if this was my garden, I'd be afraid my neighbors would show up with lawn mowers in the middle of the night. With the complete dominance of fine-textured grasses it just felt a bit weedy. There I said it. I don't think most home owners are ready for this look. I'm not. I still need a bit more woody plants and bold textures to be comfortable. But if one of my neighbors wants to have a garden like this, I promise not to bring the lawn mower by.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this garden. The central structure reminds me of an art nouveau time transporter that's spent too much time at the craft store. But they did have a giant gold dragon! And lord knows, I can't pass by a giant gold dragon without getting my picture taken with it.

This garden was quite nice. It had interesting plants combos - I liked the silver/black and bronzy/gold palettes and the use of those housing studs (I think that is what they were?) as fencing was very nice. And the columns of vertical plants was a nice twist on the typical one-dimensional features.

A garden for those with a Cinderella complex:

I did find the colors in this garden interesting. The sherbet pink and dreamsicle orange would be great in fun girly, girl garden. Just would have to find some plants in those colors that could actually survive outside.

This is a great wall, but wasn't it there last year?

So that's what I noticed at the show. I guess there were a few things to poke fun at. All I can say is, even if some are a bit silly and over-the-top, at least they are better than a boring bed of azaleas, no?

The Peeping Gardener - Seattle

Ok, this is my last post from the hundreds of photos I took this past summer in Seattle. And I imagine they're going to look quite different than how it has looked in Seattle for the past few days.

These are all from the first day I was in Seattle when I met up with Andrea of Grow Where You're Planted. Having both heard about Gas Works Park when we were studying landscape architecture, we both wanted to stop off there for a look. Gas Works Park was designed by Landscape Architect Richard Haag, created from the site of the former Seattle Gas Light Company. I lot of the machinery and buildings remain and being a fan of rusty things, I thought it would be fun to check out.

Of course the most interesting and decadently decaying industrial structures are off limits. Even up close a chain-link fence keeps you from getting a good look at it. I could get a few shots using my zoom lens and shooting over the fence.

I'd love to be able to visit Duisburg Nord Park in Germany where visitors are allowed to explore the old factories, litigation lawyers be damned.

There are some areas where you can get close and touch things but they are rather sanitized in their immovable parts and fresh coats of paint.

The children's play area is down-right depressing.

The only fun thing to climb has a Keep Off sign on it.

I suppose the best feature is the tall, king-of-the-hill vantage point one can't help but climb.

The view is great and there was kind of a weird sundial/pool/topographical map? thing at the top of the hill. It was a little dank and I kind of wondered if it would be better if kids didn't play in the water sitting in it, but I suppose it is pretty useful for keeping time on all those sunny Seattle days.

I guess overall it's a pretty gritty park, not too sanitized. Even with lots of people walking through, it still felt abandoned.

Walking along the pedestrian path, passing under bridges, we came across lots of handmade art left here and there. Here are some of my favorite we came across:

Ok, on to the garden peeping. Seattle, with all its grey weather, can pull off some intense colors. I wish I could grow acidic chartreuse plants as beautifully as they can.

The raspberries seem quite happy growing here. This house had them just falling on the sidewalk so I didn't feel bad helping myself to a few.

Then we stumbled upon this very ambitious vertical wall in front of someone's house. A poured concrete wall that must have been 8' tall and 20' long with plantings on both sides and around the corner with window cutouts. Pretty fancy.

Here is a close-up of the fabric pocket structure and how the irrigation gets through the wall.

I always get worried about what will happen in a few years when the owners get tired of taking care of a wall like this because let's face it, it's not low maintenance keeping plants happy and full in little pockets like that.

We came across a beautifully landscaped Japanese-style garden.

I loved this stair railing made to look like one of those huge pieces of seaweed.

I was taken with the huge boulders they use in Seattle for building retaining walls.

And of course you can always spot the control freak in every neighborhood.