Good News And a Good Day

First, the good news.  


Son-in-law, Corey, got a job Tuesday!  Beginning later this month, he will be working for a security company contracted to the Seattle Metro, and will be doing fare enforcement on Metro buses.  He will have a car, drive to various city locations, board a bus, and check for proper proof of paid bus fare.  It's a union job with decent wages, and good benefits.  


Tom will fly to Colorado next Thursday and help Corey drive a U-Haul and tow the family van, bringing the rest of the household items here to Seattle.  


Then the good day.  Yesterday Tom and I spent all day and into the evening at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show at the Convention Center in Seattle.  This is the 24th annual show, and we have only missed one of them.  It is a highlight of our winter-wishing-it-were-spring-season.


We planned to take the Link light rail into town, but the park-and-ride lot was completely full, so we had to join the commuter traffic going into town.  Fortunately we started early and made it in time to find parking in the adjacent garage and be at the show door when it opened.


I took hundreds of photos, of which some are actually good.  I'll be posting some of them over the next several days.

The view from the atrium on the fourth floor of the convention center, above, and the carpet of color and fragrance that greeted us in the entry hall.

There were 27 display gardens, some quite large, and some smaller vignettes. All featured plants and hardscaping.  Most you would just want to settle down in for an afternoon.

 This huge stump, actually from three trees intertwined, was recovered from a lake by the Bonsai Man extraordinaire, Dan Robinson.

 With huge boulders and wonderful old trees, his gardens are always crowd pleasers and prize winners.  You can imagine the heavy equipment needed to build some of these gardens.

 Dan was front and center, re-shaping an old bonsai tree.  We asked him what he had planned, and he told us he would be taking the whole top off!  We planned to check back later.

 In stark contrast, the next door exhibit was an orchid display.

 We went at  a leisurely pace, taking in the details of the many display gardens.

 We loved this garden that featured glass.  We are told that the bottle tree is a southern thing, but I have bottle flower buds in my garden.

 See the glass flowers by the shed?  Oh, and we loved this garden shed!  I wanted to take it home.

 We always look for interesting plant combinations.

 Tea, anyone?

 Or maybe a goody from a Paris bakery.

 This garden featured the most amazing wind sculpture, along with wonderful plant color.

 A lovely specimen Japanese maple.

 A garden featuring contorted plants.  The overall theme was music in the garden, and this one 'did the Twist'.

 I like the faux bois bench.

These were just the display gardens.  Then there were the market areas, for art, garden related products, tools, and plants.  We also attended two seminars.


More tomorrow.