The vendor booths are one of the best things about the garden show. All kinds of great garden art and plants and stuff, stuff, stuff all in one place.
One of my favorite booths, despite its cramped feeling, always full of both stuff and people, is Ravenna Gardens.
Ravenna Gardens is a shop at University Village in Seattle that sells garden art, furniture and accoutrements, as well as lots of plants and funky stuff artfully arranged for display. Their booth is like a mini-me of the shop. I had heard that they would be selling Tillandsias there, so I had to check them out.
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| Their Tillandsia display |
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| They had two different kinds of hanging glass terrariums |
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| Here's one all planted up |
I also checked out the Tillandsias on display at the Molbak's booth, but didn't buy any. I did get inspiration there on how to display them.
So...what did I buy? A couple of Tillandsias from Ravenna, as well as two hanging glass terrariums. As I walked through the Vintage Market, I noticed a couple of booths with galvanized bins full of pieces of driftwood. I asked one seller how much she wanted and she said, "Ten dollars." Then she laughed, probably at the shocked look on my face. She told me to take a couple for free. So I did, and now I'm using them with the Tillandsias from Ravenna and the inspiration from Molbak's.
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| This display spot is temporary, it's almost certainly not getting enough light here. |
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| I have this one sitting on the kitchen windowsill, but I took it out to photograph it on my kitchen island. |
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| My two hanging glass terrariums |
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| My Garden Nursery had mushrooms in many sizes and every conceivable combination of colors, so I bought these two |
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| I also bought a Buddha face to go out in the front garden, maybe leaning up against the broken concrete wall, from a vendor called Studio Bridges. |
When I told Nigel I had bought a Buddha face, he thought it might be a plant. After all, there's a citrus fruit called a Buddha hand. I could actually see someone naming a plant "Buddha face."
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| Puya alpestris ($8.00) |
Check out the flowers on Puya alpestris, on
this page from Annie's Annuals. You'll also find excellent photos and cultivation information in
this link from Plant Lust. It's only hardy to Zone 9, so I'll probably treat it as a houseplant, and overwinter it in the greenhouse. I also bought two small $5 pots of Anemanthele lessoniana.
There were large plants at
Bark and Garden that I would have bought if I hadn't been parked all the way across the street in a parking garage. I just didn't want to haul plants home from the show. I'll probably visit Bark and Garden in Olympia some time this spring, when I can just buy what I want and load it in the car.
Time to get busy planting up those two terrariums!
