Spectacular fairy garden at Northwest Flower and Garden show to get home soon in Tacoma
The Northwest Flower and Garden Festival’s show gardens are sometimes more fantasy than practical. The annual show allows plant aficionados to imagine spring a full month before it arrives. This year, Tumwater garden designer Landen Moore has taken that daydream one step further with a fairy-themed garden.
The sprites populate the display garden he’s created for the show, which runs Wednesday through Sunday at the Seattle Convention Center. Lilliputian doors and windows emerge from towering gray stumps. Pixie-sized steps and paths weave among plantings of hellebores and black mondo grass.
Moore said he wanted visitors to feel as if they are walking through an ancient Northwest forest.
“You see this old stump, and it looks a little different from the outside,” he said. “But as you get closer, you realize it’s very different. And it’s its own magical little world.”
On Tuesday, Moore won the festival’s Best in Show award for the fairy garden. He’s a previous two-time winner.
Called “The Secret Garden,” the show-stopping creation is the first visitors see in the main hall. Moore placed salvaged cedar and other tree stumps in a semi-circle to give the impression of a gigantic old growth tree that houses the fairy village. A cascade of water spills from the center of the garden to its edge.
The garden uses a variety of low ground covers, including mosses, so as not to overwhelm the impish residents. Mountain firs, legally harvested from federal lands, provide an alpine feel to the garden while making the circle of wood seem even larger. Carnations and primroses add color.
At least one stump is from an old growth tree, felled at least a century ago. The springboard notches loggers used to climb the trunk are evident. The wood, from Carter Evans Wood Concepts, filled three semi-trucks, Moore said.
Point Defiance
Moore first built the garden at his Tumwater business, Nature Perfect. For the past several days, he and his crew have been reassembling it at the Seattle show.
A version of the roughly 30-foot-square garden will be installed at Point Defiance Park this year in time for the Metro Parks Tacoma’s annual flower and garden festival in June. On Tuesday, the agency said it’s in talks with Moore as to whether the fairy garden will be on permanent display at the park.
This is Moore’s 10th year at the Seattle show.
Other show highlights
South Sound gardening experts are represented at the Northwest Flower and Garden Festival this year.
News Tribune and Olympian gardening columnist Marianne Binetti is hosting “Container Wars” daily. Local designers create container gardens in real time.
W.W. Seymour Conservatory horticulturist Tyra Shenaurlt hosts “Blooms and Bubbles” floral design workshop at 2:30 p.m. on Thursday. Participants create a make-and-take floral arrangement while sipping champagne.
Tacoma-based designer and author Sue Goetz speaks about herbs on Saturday. It’s one of more than 100 free seminars and lectures over the five days of the festival.
If you go
What: Northwest Flower and Garden Festival
When: 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednedsay-Saturday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday
Where: Seattle Convention Center, 705 Pike St., Seattle
Tickets: $27 adult. See website for discounts and deals
Information: gardenshow.com
This story was originally published February 14, 2024 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Spectacular fairy garden at Northwest Flower and Garden show to get home soon in Tacoma."
