The Making of the Flower & Garden Show

Ever wondered about how much work goes into making 25 beautiful full-scale gardens indoors? This time-lapse video shows you the incredible amount of soil, sweat and plants needed to create the gardens at the West Coast’s largest garden show every year – the Northwest Flower & Garden Show at the Washington State Convention Center.

We couldn’t do it without the help of Sawdust Supply and Marenakos.

People making their first visit to a world-class flower & garden show, such as the annual extravaganzas in Seattle, Philadelphia and London (the three largest shows in the world), are often surprised at their scale, production values and overall quality. And even frequent attendees continue to be amazed and marvel at how it all comes together.

As the photos on this page illustrate, a world-class garden show is a huge, complex production. Just as an example, the Northwest garden show uses 1,200 cubic yards of sawdust and mulch for the gardens (that’s about 150 dump truck-loads) and 280,000 pounds of rock. The trucks bringing in the flowers & plants for the gardens come from all up and down the West Coast. More than 300 theatrical lighting instruments are hung from the ceiling above the gardens.

Creating the gardens is the most complex part of the show. Planning for them begins nine months before the show. The gardens are like the actors, scenery and music in an opera, ballet or play. Just as those elements are the most expensive part of those artistic productions, the landscaped gardens are the most complex part of a garden show.

Trucks arrive on the first day with loads of sawdust		Planning the lighting
The base for the display gardens – more sawdust		The show gardens taking shape
A lot of hard work, but a lot of fun		Finally the trees and finishing touches.

Many people are surprised to learn that the companies and organizations creating flower gardens do not pay the show to exhibit, rather the show pays them a substantial cash subsidy plus provides other support including lighting, electricity, water, heavy equipment, labor rocks and mulch. The total direct cost to create the landscaped gardens is well over one million dollars.

By sharing this background about what it takes to produce a world-class flower show, we hope that your next visit to the Northwest Flower & Garden Show will be even richer and more enjoyable. We’ll see you February 20 – 24, 2013!