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Plant Life Valerie Easton

Expect Enchantment

A streamlined Flower & Garden Show still promises to charm us

THE NORTHWEST Flower & Garden Show is shrinking this year, but that may be a good thing. Show manager Cyle Eldred assures me that at six acres, "It may be more compact, but it's still a really big show." The non-horticultural elements have been eliminated, and the show consolidated onto mostly one floor. "We've been much more picky about everything being garden-related," says Eldred, who hopes the overall effect will be less home show, more flower show.

The main changes you'll find, besides less walking, jewelry and clothing, is that educational and nonprofit displays will be mixed in with the commercial booths. The ikebana, Funky Junk and Flora Fantasia exhibits moved downstairs into the North Hall, across the skybridge. And the seminars won't be up the escalators, but on the second, third and fourth floors off the hallways between the parking garage and the show.

Not to worry, though. The display gardens have not been reduced in size, scope or variety. After all, it's the creativity and bravado of these full-blown, blooming creations that coax us back year after year. Yet it's all too easy to glaze over them when faced with crowds, concrete floors, 25 gardens and too many tulips (or whatever this year's "it plant" turns out to be). Here, in decidedly nonofficial categories, are what I expect to be show highlights you might want to track down before succumbing to sensory overload:

Most Phantasmagorical: AW Pottery's first-ever garden features a Bedouin tent, cushioned divans, movies flickering on diaphanous curtains, and a copper reflecting pool. Inspired by Kublai Khan's pleasure dome, designer Chris Jacobs has created a refuge of hardy lemon trees and fragrant jasmine. Best of all, this is a garden to walk through, not just look at, so you can really soak up the atmospherics. Be sure to pause long enough to add a verse to the poetry tree.

Best Lighting: Designer Karen Stefonick of LeJardin Home, Garden and Ranch Design has made a seduction of a garden with lighting that cycles through day and night every few minutes. Low-voltage lights highlight plantings and a geometric five-sided wooden canopy stained chocolate brown.

Most Soothing: A pebbled reflexology path, the sound of water and therapeutic, fragrant plants fill this "Holistic Escape" garden by Jessica Bloom, inspired by her own knee injury and healing process.

Hottest Exotics: Tropical foliage accented by masks from the Costa Rican rainforest are the stage set for the Northwest Horticultural Society's exhibit. Borucan Indian artists will be on hand, carving and painting balsa wood masks depicting the flora and fauna of their native land.

Best Neo-Style: In "The Garden as Gallery: Two Rooms," designer Greg Butler updates and urbanizes the cottage garden, defining its customary abundance with bold scale, including a 7-foot-tall boulder atop a rotating pedestal. "It might be a cottage garden, but it's not for shrinking violets," says Butler.

Best Boomer Garden: Van Morrison fans will appreciate "A Marvelous Night for a Moon Dance" and its mysterious, shimmery plant palette. Designer Sue Goetz laps the edges of her dance floor with shadowy plant silhouettes (Euphorbia 'Black Pearl' and 'Black Beauty' elderberry) as well as pale, luminescent plants like Hebe 'Silver Dollar,' Himalayan birches and white calla lilies to reflect moonlight.

Best Eco-Illustration: How could you not love a garden designed by a guy who named his business "Urban Thickets"? Warren Clink, recently moved to Seattle, has twice competed at England's famed Chelsea Show. "Whose Living Room?" features two houses, one dilapidated, the other tidy. The gardens surrounding these contrasting façades showcase the beauty of weeds, the contrast between an elegant, proper garden and one reverting to nature.

Valerie Easton is a Seattle freelance writer. Her e-mail address is valeaston@comcast.net.

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