Where have all the flower shows gone?

Duane Kelly, chairman of the Northwest Flower & Garden Show and the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show, has announced that next month’s event (Feb. 18-22, 2009) may be the last:  The Seattle show is up for sale.  If no buyer is found, the show will close.  More details from the Seattle P-I.

 

That’s a huge blow to the gardening community not just here in the Northwest, but across the country — we’ve always had a good contingent of out-of-town speakers and attendees.  In the Northwest, our year seems to begin at the convention center, where we can fool ourselves for a while that it isn’t gray and rainy outside.

 

I’ve been involved with the flower show for about 15 years.  My first job was running a seminar room — turning the lights on and off, introducing speakers, telling people to sit down, unsticking slides.  Then, I worked in the show office, running the ticket sales.  For the last eight years (I think), I’ve been a speaker myself. 

 

I’ll miss the show terribly, but I understand why Duane wants to bow out now.  Because of the decline of the industry, he’s had to do more hands-on work each year, just when he would have preferred to back away from the day-to-day aspect, and spend more time playwriting.  So, I say thanks, Duane, for giving us two decades of early spring.

What’s on your shelf?

OK, sorry … now, where was I?

Lorene, who blogs at plantedathome.com, had tagged me in a sort of chain-letter event (Debra Prinzing at shedstyle.com also sent it to me) — I’m supposed to grab a book from within arm’s length (for me, the shelf behind), go to page 56, fifth sentence and read two or three lines.  Even though I’m way behind in responding to this, I’ll have you know I have not rearranged the bookshelf, and I have not memorized its order, so this is about as random as it gets for a garden writer (although there’s the question of reaching with my right or my left hand).  Here goes.

            Right-handed, the choice is:  The Plant Locator Western Region by Susan Hill and Susan Narizny (Timber Press, 2004) — unfortunately out of print.  It’s an exceptional work and one I use constantly to check names.  The Susans were meticulous in checking the latest correct botanical name and cultivar listing, and I use it second only to the Royal Horticultural Society’s Plant Finder online (that, too, gives me nursery sources, but I use it to verify names and spellings).  Here’s my reading:

 

u*  obesum ssp. somalense ‘Nova #2’            caGuy

*    obesum ssp. swazicum                                    caGuy

*u  obesum ssp. swazicum ‘Perpetual Pink’   caGuy

 

OK, that’s about enough of that.  It’s the end of a listing of Adenium , an interesting African plant called the desert rose that’s not hardy around Seattle — at least not this winter (here’s a good photo and info).  The Plant Locator’s info includes subspecies (when plant characteristics differ because of, for example, geographic difference).  The “u” means its unverified and the asterisk notes that it’s a new entry.  The “caGuy” shows that it is (was) available from Guy Wrinkle Exotic Plants in Los Angeles.

            You see how useful this book is?  You could probably find one used — if you don’t want to search for yourself, let David at Flora & Fauna do it for you.

            Sorry Lorene and Debra — I’ve always been the last stop when it comes to chain letters, so I have not sent this out to five people who must look on page 56 of a book within reach.  I can’t even send recipe chain letters along.

            There’s much more to say these days about gardening, touring and writing, but I wanted to get this out there and get it off my conscience.