This time I’m going in March. Last time I went in June. It felt like March.
This year, I’m going to the San Francisco Garden Show. Or, as it is known on twitter, #SFGS. Even my sister’s asking what the heck this #SFGS stuff is. (I’m slightly creeped out that my sister is on twitter-especially when she calls me out on something. It is a bit like getting dressed down by your boss in front of everyone you work with.) The twitter world is all a-flutter, with folks flying in from all over creation to meet, greet, and see some plants.
Me, I’m going to shop.
Why I Love Garden Shows
The landscapes are cute. They provide opportunities to take close-up photos of almost every hot new plant on the market, and every old favorite standby. There are seminars where you can learn a new idea or two. For home gardeners, or gardening newbies, a ticket to a garden show, especially one where you can keep coming back during the entire show, is like a really cheap gardening workshop that, in the rest of the world, would cost something like $1,000 and have homework.
But, I know how to garden. My landscape is pretty well established, except for the gigantic new vegetable garden I’m putting in this spring. (That I swore I wasn’t going to do.)
I LOVE garden shows, because I love to shop. Garden shows are THE BEST place to find all of the weird and wonderful garden tools, books, plants, and frou-frou things in one place. Often, with deals. And, in the company of other people who are JUST as PLANT OBSESSED as you are, so that you don’t feel like a freak of nature. You might say, well, can’t you just go to your local garden center for that? No. You really can’t. At a garden show, you don’t look out of place carrying ten shopping bags. If you push four carts up to the register at Home Depot, or fill six wagons at your local garden center, after they take your money, they put you on a “list” of crazies to look out for. (I made that up. But, it isn’t far from the truth.)
I’m going to be among my own kind.
Poor hubby. I’m leaving him at home, so I can frolic with my fellow plant fanatics. We’re going to tweet-up. We’re going to play hooky and visit Filoli. We’re going to eat ourselves silly on artisan yogurt, ethnic sausages, and home-grown produce grilled in front of us at the Saturday San Francisco Farmer’s Market. (What? You didn’t know that was on the schedule? Well, it is on my schedule.)
I’m going to the Left Coast to see weird things that don’t grow at my house, and finally meet, in person, many of my new twitter friends. So we can talk about what we had for breakfast in person. (That was a twitter joke.)
If You’re In the Area. . .
You really should go. So, San Francisco folks, people from the surround, and those who can get there in a few hours, come and join us. It’s gonna be great. The SFGS PR person, Laura, says so.
Click here for the important info you need.
. We went up to the UC Berkley Botanical Garden. GORGEOUS! Here are some pics.
