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Display gardens and much more at SF Flower Show

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED MAR 22, 2019

Clearwater Landscape Design of Folsom won top honors at the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show at Cal Expo.
(Photos: Debbie Arrington)

Big crowd on hand at Cal Expo for state’s largest garden show

A huge opening day crowd greeted the 34th annual San Francisco Flower and Garden Show, which made its Cal Expo debut Thursday.

Held for the first time in Sacramento, the show continues through Sunday with special events and seminars each day.

Uprooted from the Cow Palace after a scheduling snafu, California’s largest garden show settled into the Pavilion building normally inhabited by livestock at the State Fair. Scores of popular vendors such as Dan’s Dahlias and Hartley Botanic greeted returning customers who came from throughout Northern California to shop, listen and learn.

In three corners of the massive building, guest speakers entertained hundreds of patrons at a trio of presentation stages. Artistic floral arrangements, edible gardens and impressive bonsai trees – some a century old – emphasized the flower and garden aspects of this big show. So did the thousands of live exotic, unusual or rare plants offered for sale. Heirloom vegetable seedlings were in abundance.

Because of the late venue change, participants had less than three months to get ready for Cal Expo. Garden creators usually spend eight to 10 months preparing for the SF Flower Show’s competition.

Show producer Sherry Larsen said she had to scramble to get designers willing and able to create innovative display gardens, a hallmark of this venerable event. Instead of a dozen or more, seven mostly local designers took part.

The big winner was a SF Flower Show regular. Folsom’s Nathan Beeck and Clearwater Landscape Design earned Best in Show with an eye-catching “fire-resistant” display garden featuring a double waterfall, reflecting pond, steel siding and native plants. Beeck and Juan Chavez designed the garden, using plants by Site One Nursery.

Kent Gordon England's display garden

Runner-up was another show veteran: Kent Gordon England. Known for his restoration designs, the longtime designer created a flower- and citrus-filled English-style cottage garden, built around reclaimed Grecian columns and an enchanting greenhouse.

Sacramento’s Ahmed Hassan, well-known as HGTV’s “Yard Crasher,” was awarded third place for his contemporary display garden, built around twin 20-foot magnolia trees.

In the edible gardening section, Bill Maynard and his City of Sacramento community gardens crew “had fun with wattles,” straw-filled barriers. Maynard also demonstrated different ways to make an instant raised bed vegetable garden.

Several garden clubs were on hand to share their expertise. One in particular stood out: The Paradise Garden Club. President Ward Habriel was among thousands of Paradise residents who lost their homes during November’s deadly camp fire. The club’s signature project, “Daffodils Across the Ridge,” has become a symbol of hope for the community.

Before the fire, the club had planted more than 162,000 daffodils as part of its 10-year-old project. Rising from the charred streets of Paradise, many of those daffodils are now in bloom.

“There’s nothing left of our house, but we have daffodils everywhere,” Habriel said. His club is raising fire-safety awareness as well as donations to plant more daffodils.

The San Francisco Flower and Garden Show continues from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Details and tickets: www.sfgardenshow.com .

One of many artistic floral arrangements on display

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Flower and Garden Show kent gordon england Sacramento paradise garden club Cal Expo clearwater landscape design nathan beeck San Francisco

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Garden Checklist for week of May 19

Temperatures will be a bit higher than normal in the afternoons this week. Take care of chores early in the day – then enjoy the afternoon. It’s time to smell the roses.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. If you haven’t already, it’s time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters.

* Plant dahlia tubers. Other perennials to set out include verbena, coreopsis, coneflower and astilbe.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Don’t forget to water. Seedlings need moisture. Deep watering will help build strong roots and healthy plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to help keep that precious water from evaporating. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch to 1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

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