Recently I happily hopped a plane and headed west for a combined business/pleasure trip to the San Francisco area. My sister lives near the city and the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show was taking place just a stone’s throw from her home. Thanks to Laura Schaub (PR woman extraordinaire and a fellow Garden Writer) I got a sneak peek at the show floor before the doors opened.

Check out these highlights to get you itchin’ for spring if it hasn’t already arrived in your zone:

Organic Mechanics welcomed attendees with a vertically planted cube set in the center of a pond. Upon closer inspection I saw it housed a charming dining area!  I couldn’t resist tiptoeing across the stepping stones into the sweet sanctuary. And I was fortunate enough to catch Robin Stockwell at his Succulent Gardens booth, where he had the boxes on display that were used to create the cube, each box planted with drought-tolerant succulents.

Sproutopia: A room full of gardening goodness with kids. Small "shoebox" gardens were created by school children depicting Kings Mountain School, Alice’s Restaurant and other well-known locales. The Beekeper’s Guild of San Mateo County was on hand with honey and info about the plight of the bees. Lynn Adams taught the kids about composting with real live wiggly worms (what goes together better than kids and worms?). Tim Kong taught the sprouts about bonsai in a class called "Bonsai for Kids: Plants as Pets!" It was great to see so many kids excited about gardening.

Leslie Bennett from Star Apple Edible Gardens helped construct the Edible Victory Garden that included both ornamentals and edibles, which happens to  be one of the hottest trends happening in every zone across the country. Leslie’s installation proved that our vegetable patch need not be separate from our ornamentals, and that we can have a garden that’s "useful and delightful."

The Marketplace was so full of products I could have spent one day just shopping! Watering cans, cutting tools, garden ornaments, handbags, containers, linens, lighting and so much more. Check out Katie Elzer-Peters’ blog, The Garden of Words, for a recap and photos of what you need to keep folks from stealing from your plot! And Rebecca Sweet who runs Harmony in the Garden – Landscaping shares the metal mania trend that was on display all over the show floor. (That armadillo lurking in the grass in actually a grill!)

For more photos and trendspotting visit the show’s Facebook page. 

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