San Francisco Garden Show 2015

GOING WILD! That was the theme of this year’s San Francisco Garden Show – going wild to use environmentally friendly and sustainable gardening, with creative freedom. The show is held annually at the San Mateo Convention Center, and runs from Wednesday through Sunday over the weekend closest to the vernal equinox. My aunt and I have been coming to the show for over 15 years, and have a pretty good system of seeing the gardens, exhibits, and market place before we collapse with overstimulation. Delicious caramels or chocolates usually revive our stamina!

I was drawn to the Mountain Feed and Farm Homestead booth, with its books on organic farming, canning, pickling, and cheese making. The old truck, bee keeping supplies, canning jars (Ball makes jars in green, blue, and purple, as well as classic clear), and starter mixes is so appealing. Could it be a backlash to all the digital gadgets in our lives; a yearning for do-it-yourself, physical labor, and the back-to-the-land movement of the 1960s and 70s?

Bee keeping, herbs, preserving food

We were both drawn to the Living Light garden, which featured a cabin, mushroom house, and raised beds, with edibles mixed in with the ornamental plants. No straight rows of vegetables with proper spacing for this garden. What a pleasure it would be to harvest salad greens from those beautiful beds.

Living Light - raised bed kitchen garden

We attended lectures hosted by GardenTribe. Together, a cooking show on Asian greens, given by Sharon Wang, M. Ed., who hosts the blog Nut Free Wok. We sampled homemade daikon cakes flavored with lap cheong sausage, and learned about 10 important Asian greens, including pea shoots, bok choi, Napa cabbage, Chinese broccoli, and snow peas. Apart, my aunt attended a lecture on making rose petal jam, and I attended the Photo Botanic session on botanical photography, given by Saxon Holt (whose photographs are featured in EBMUD’s Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates of the San Francisco Bay Region).

Saxon Holt of Photo Botanic shared tips on photocomposition

I loved the garden Sublimation, with its gabions (gabbione is Italian for “big cage”) filled with round rocks, and its water-wise plantings of fescue grasses and agave. It was designed by Eric Arneson (BFA Landscape Architecture), and Nahal Sohrati (MFA Landscape Architecture) from Academy of Art University. Next door, Room is a Garden – Garden is a Room also used gabions, mixing stones, colored glass, and plants (designed by Iftikhar Ahmed of Treeline Designz).

Sublimation - using gabions in the landscape

Room is a Garden - another take on gabions in the landscape

Meadow Mindcraft, inspired by the video game Mine Craft, provided an appealing combination of beautiful meadow plantings, and bold colored shapes, reminiscent of a game. It was designed by John Greenlee and Chuck Stophard of Greenlee & Associates.

Meadow Mindcraft - video game inspired garden

The Bring Nature Home garden (designed by April Owens, Nancy Bauer, and Charlotte Togovitsky) emphasized creating a garden for wildlife, which includes food, water, cover, and a place for wildlife to raise their young. Learn more about creating a certified wildlife habitat from the National Wildlife Federation web site, and take advantage of their resources.

Bring Nature Home - provide natural habitat in the garden

Finally, we love to shop! I found a vendor that can restore our patio furniture set – Patio Chair Care. I also found beautiful silk and rayon scarves designed by Kavita Singh. My aunt found wonderful salty caramels, which simply melt in your mouth. It was enough to revive us for the drive back to the East Bay!