Landscape & Gardens
Planted Inspiration
Duane Kelly’s virtual reality is both winter antidote and inspiration
BY
Schraepfer Harvey
PHOTOGRAPHY
Andrew Drake


Duane Kelly
Every February, Duane Kelly and his company, Salmon Bay Events, create a virtual spring for the Northwest Flower & Garden Show. The seasons shift early inside the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, where a base of sawdust and a layer of mulch support living plants while recorded bird songs and radiant theatrical lighting fill the air. “I have a conviction that gardens are one of the greatest sources of beauty on earth,” Kelly says.

Inspired by shows in Philadelphia and Boston, Kelly launched the first Northwest Flower & Garden Show in 1989 and the San Francisco Flower and Garden Show about eight years later. The avid gardener and Seattle Design 100+ honoree believes that our culture’s increased immersion in high-tech virtual worlds creates a converse need for the basic tactile sensations and beauty that gardening provides. “What [garden shows] do is celebrate that beauty and arouse an interest in gardeners to create some of that beauty in their own personal environment,” Kelly explains.

This year, Kelly aims to reach younger gardeners with new features on the redesigned Web site, GardenShow.com. They include an event blog and a link to the “My Garden Spaces” Web page, where visitors can create profiles and post their own garden photos. The virtual networking intends to get Generation-X gardeners excited about gardening and into the show, where they can get practical ideas for in-city gardening—12 displays on the Convention Center sky bridge and three patio garden displays speak to the surge of condo dwellings.

Other new features this year include live cooking demonstrations, with regional chefs such as Jerry Traunfeld, formerly of The Herbfarm Restaurant, sourcing meals directly from the Northwest Horticultural Society’s container- and patio-garden edible plant displays. The show also has an emphasis on health this year. “Every gardener will tell you that working in a garden makes them feel better mentally and that over time, it’s good exercise,” Kelly says. Visitors can gather health and gardening wisdom from a new women’s health pavilion as well as close to 300 exhibitors, 110 seminars and 26 display gardens, including a special focus on container garden displays. With the NWF&GS, Kelly provides plenty of inspiration to get a little soil under our nails.

The exuberant indoor garden displays and informational seminars of the annual Northwest Flower & Garden Show, at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, February 20–24, intend to get visitors gardening. Tickets are $19; advance tickets are $16; five-day pass is $65. Details: (206) 789-5333.