Fragrance and Greenery

{I wrote this post two weeks ago, in the evening after we went to the Flower and Garden Show}

Each year in Seattle, organizers put on a most incredible feast for the senses - The Northwest Flower and Garden Show. Several times I have enjoyed this event with my mom, and once with my mother-in-law. It would be a girls' day out, leaving the kids at home with Daddy. But this year the moms couldn't come, and I thought Gabriel was old enough to enjoy it now. I couldn't very well leave Annika at home, so I surprised them this morning with the news that we would be going there for our field trip day today. We took the bus downtown (the SLOW bus, with the "colorful" Bus People), got our tickets, and rode up the four stories of escalators to enter the main event area. Immediately, the fragrance of multitudes of blooms filled the air, heavy and almost dripping.

We viewed the fabulous display gardens, visited the children's area, spent some time in the butterfly house, and enjoyed "window shopping" at all the booths. We came home with 2 lavender plants and some air plants for the kids. I was surprised that Gabriel was more interested in buying house plants than garden plants. There weren't really any house plant booths, which was just as well.

I'll leave you with a number of photos from the day.

Gabriel was taken with this garden full of orchids.

This was a rooftop garden, a living roof complete with solar panels for the display house.

I thought these colorful rocks were a nice addition to one of the display gardens.

A fun little spiral adding color to the garden.

This dinosaur themed garden had castings of dinosaur footprints among the prehistoric plants. Such a fun idea!

The kids got to plant some pea seeds at one of the kids' booths.

We spent about a half an hour in the butterfly exhibit. Gabriel had five or six on his hand by the end. The kids were so sweet and gentle with the butterflies.

We got to observe the butterflies feeding up close.

When we walked through this display, Gabriel commented that he felt like he was in a dream. I thought that was a pretty good compliment to the designers.