The Farwest Show 2010, Part 1

Last year was my first visit to the Oregon Association of Nurseries Farwest Show. I was part of a small group of gardeners invited by the association as they reached out to the gardening public. I was VERY excited, and thanks to my role at plant lust I was back again this year. What is Farwest? Taken from their website…”The Farwest show one of the leading nursery and greenhouse industry trade shows in the United States. The show typically attracts 13,000-15,000 wholesale growers, retailers, landscape contractors / designers / architects, industry suppliers, educators and others from virtually every U.S. state and several foreign countries… Nearly 60 percent of exhibiting companies are wholesale nurseries at the Farwest Show - more green goods exhibitors than any other show in North America.”

In other words a plant geek’s heaven! Did you know that Oregon ranks third in annual wholesale plant sales in the U.S.? We’re behind only California and Florida. I asked some of the vendors I talked with how they were feeling about this years show and “cautious optimism” was the answer. I don’t have any actual statistics but I’ve heard that attendance was actually up this year, everyone I talked to seemed to feeling good.

I didn’t spot any big new trends (this is the cautious part of the optimism right?), there were still more Coneflowers and Heuchera than you can imagine, as well as lots of succulents and groundcovers. Looking through these pictures you will see an inclination toward bright colors like orange and apple green, but be warned that’s just my bias showing through. There were plenty of reds and yellows as well as muted earth tones.

I did see a couple of familiar faces, the folks from Fry Road Nursery where there, and their booth even won a couple of awards!

I stopped in front of this wicked display long enough that the gentleman running the booth gave me a demo. This machine transplants your little seedlings up to the next size cell; here they are ready to be transplanted.

The metal arms come down and punch the roots and the plant through the bottom of the current tray…

…into the tray waiting below, already filled with soil. And you haven’t even got your hands dirty!

This booth looked like a craft project was about to break out at any moment. I really wanted to sit down and see what I could make from these fun things. A few big leaves caught my eye… Rhododendron sinogrande.

R. calophytum

Centarea cinerea at the Rare Plant Research booth.

Of course were several marketing programs on display….like this one: grow a jungle in your garden!

I love how the picture of the elephant and the look of the colocasia bulbs it is advertising just seem to go together. Rough texture and big!

More marketing….

Unfortunately even the best product sometimes gets upstaged the props. These dyed fiber fake fern fronds were not for sale. The pots were. But everyone (including me) asked about the fern fronds.

I bet they’ll be selling them next year.

Tomorrow…the new variety showcase and the things I wanted to take home with me…