Showcase Gardens

The Showcase Gardens will delight attendees as the Portland Home & Garden Show® unveils spring pleasures in full bloom inside the Expo Center

The Portland Home & Garden Show has brought in the top landscapers in the Northwest to create gardens of beauty and originality – all inside at the Expo Center!  The show will host more than a dozen landscape experts and designers who will design gardens of distinction.  Herald the return of spring!

The Showcase Gardens return with absolutely beautiful landscapes constructed by some of the top garden designers and artists in the Northwest.  With more than a dozen total garden displays to tour, it’s TWICE the number of most shows and here’s a chance to see new designs, color trends, hardscapes, materials and plants of special interest.

Each year, a remarkable transformation occurs, as the Portland Home & Garden Show trucks in tons of dirt, rock, bark and plants into the Expo Center.  In less than a week, the region’s top experts create amazing works of landscaping artistry trumpeting the return of all things bright, green and beautiful – creating a gardener’s paradise!  The Portland Home & Garden Show strives to bring a variety of gardens representing homeowner interests and desires for the perfect backyard or front yard entry.  And, you can hire these experts to come to your own home, so get started!

The Showcase Gardens Participants for 2013

This year’s landscape experts will be vying for awards and recognition in the return of the Excellence in Landscaping competition!  It’s been several years since we’ve had celebrity judges, nationally recognized experts and local media judge the gardens.  Our judging panel will include The Oregonian’s Kym Pokorny, local gardening celebrity Anne Jaeger, and Former Sunset Magazine editor Steve Lorton plus many others.  When you visit the gardens be sure to read each garden description, and see the level of award given (gold, silver or bronze) for their efforts.  You’ll have a chance to see a variety of styles – modern, Asian, Northwest inspired, and many others.  Also look for local breweries and wineries doing taste testing at the garden area this year!

All Natural Landscape
A Northwest Event

With our display garden design, our goal was to help inspire people to take advantage of our beautiful Northwest splendor by creating spaces that will ultimately extend their outdoor season.   We hope you enjoy …….

Begin your evening on the meandering pathways though a garden filled with trees and raised planting beds. Enjoy the mix of different colors, shapes, sizes and textures on your way to the entertaining and culinary portion of your event.

With our uniquely designed “Center Piece” constructed from reclaimed lumber, concrete countertops and an ornate recycled tin roof. Show off your “Cooking Prowess” by utilizing the built-in Traeger and BBQ while serving up your favorite beverages to your guests.  Next, enjoy the celestial skies, share stories and songs, and roast marshmallows with your younger guests on a raised patio area while staying comfortable around a “Cozy” raised fire pit.

The most difficult part of all will come next, putting an end to a tremendous outdoor event, or you could just add more wood to the fire!

We thank you for taking this journey with us and hope it provides inspiration on how to enjoy more of your time in the outdoors.

All Nature’s Construction
Title: All Nature’s Retreat

We would like to invite you to step outside the hustle and bustle of your everyday life and step inside All Natures Retreat. Here, inside the garden, listen to the birds chirping, the sound of water running, the smell of fresh fir trees.

Let your guard down and your senses will rise to pick up the wonderful surroundings, textures, and smells of spring.

Yes, spring has arrived, and its a time when we love to go hiking in nature. To see, hear, and smell all that fresh, new and green and allows us remember that life is great here in the Northwest. Meander through the garden, journey behind the waterfall, and view the garden through the cascading water.

You can walk down the natural stone walk ways to the timber framed patio cover. Here, you and your family and friends can enjoy each others company in the midst of nature inside your own personal retreat.

The Portland Chapter, American Rhododendron Society
The World of Rhododendrons

The Portland Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society is proud to display our garden “The World of Rhododendrons”, showing the diversity of these magnificent plants. There are more than nine hundred species found in nature, like the semi-tropical spices Vireya. You will be able to see the biggest leaf specie R. sinogrande, with leaves that can grow up to 36” to smaller forms like the dwarf R. small gem. With hybridization it is possible now to find almost any color blooms under the rainbow, from R. Nancy Evans a tri-color orange-red-yellow bloom to R. Black Widow an almost black bloom.

You will be astonished by the variety of shapes, colors and sizes of the rhododendron’s leaves from the variegated R. Superflimmer to the R. yakushimanum leaves that have thick fuzz on the underside (indumentum) to the R. racemosum with scented leaves or the R. Loderi forms with scented blooms.

Come learn how to differentiate a rhododendron from an azalea. We will have Chapter Member’s available to answer your questions on how and where to plant and most importantly prune. And while you are there enter your name for a chance to win a beautiful rhododendron.

Autumn Leaf (Green Leaf)
Autumn Oasis

As we look into the future, we envision the past. Our garden is a centric display of both the craftsman and contemporary styles of landscape design. Autumn Leaf Landscaping, Inc., has designed and created a space using weathered lumber and modern hardscape textures that balance the garden space. The garden is defined by the fragmented garden walls puncturing through the walkways and the focal point of an outdoor kitchen area. Fire dances among the weathered steel lotus flower with a back drop of lush colorful plantings. To create a room that is visible in any back yard, there will be eco-friendly pavers for the patio and architectural natural stone seating walls that create elevation change and interest. The unique outdoor kitchen has water flowing beneath the glass countertop as it spills into aquatic plants. Take a seat in the surreal ‘leaf’ chair and let the colors of the glass and plants reflect off your eyes. Come check it out!!

Bamboo Man

Look for an exquisite display of Japanese influenced gardening and design from the Bamboo Man.  His majestic use of bamboo to create the traditional elements associated with is masterful.   Expect to see the use of rock, water and plant material to rival the most intimate and well done Japanese gardens.  If there are word that describes this year’s garden, perhaps – peaceful and tranquil will do just fine.

Cornerstone Hardscapes/Creative Garden Spaces
Home is What You Make It

We are welcoming the trend toward making our outdoor spaces an extension of our indoor rooms by carefully designing this sophisticated yet relaxing Outdoor Living Space.  We used multi-levels and raised planting beds to define each space, where walls would be used indoors and there are wide stair ways to move people comfortably through to each area.

On the upper patio, an L-shape cook island is integrated into a rustic structure that covers the space and designates it as the kitchen/bar/entertaining area. It’s a comfortable space with mixed materials such as concrete, stone and wood, warmed by incandescent lighting. Adjacent to the kitchen is an intimate dining area filled with romantic light, colors and fragrances.

A lounging patio is just steps away, over a water rill with a modern flair which fills the air with the sounds of falling water.  Tucked away on the lower level of the outdoor space is a modest fire pit in what would be considered a living area, where people can gather and converse over fire.  Throughout the garden we have injected repurposed elements such as furniture and garden art. The stone walls and patios are softened with plantings in the NW style. They provide some privacy as well as interest in the use of foliage color and textures.  Come and enjoy! We hope you are inspired to create an outdoor room of your own.

Earthworks Landscape Services
Outdoor Warmth

Earthworks Landscape Service, Inc. is proud to introduce you to our 2013 Spring Home and Garden display feature at Portland Expo Center in Portland, Oregon.  Earthworks Landscape Service, Inc. developed the concept and infused it with their well known natural style. They are a local family owned landscape business with years of experience installing small and large landscape improvements. This garden was designed in a 3-D computer program that offers insight as to design progress and implementation of concepts. While the overall garden look may vary slightly when finished using this type of design process can really help families interested in landscape improvements to understand the end result before work even begins.

The “Outdoor Warmth” display garden creates an intimate space that invites people in and holds them with the warmth of the fire, sound of the water and promise of enjoyable times to come! The edges along the patio will have a two raised garden box’s… one with a custom weeping water wall with plants cascading from the top. The plantings will add some softness and color… giving a nice “sneak peek” before arriving into the heart of the hardscape. The walkway and patio leading to the custom garden structure are created with locally made hardscape pavers that echo northwest colors.

The inner space provides a sense of protection, pulling both from the beauty of the rock pillars and walls that surround the patio. As the custom metal, wood and tiled garden structure affords a space against the elements, guests can begin to understand the promise of wonderful times this courtyard shares. The unique look of the cozy custom carved rock fire place with rustic mantle and inlaid elk begins to captivate and bring out the outdoor desire in all of us!

The pellet style BBQ near the outdoor counter beckons for juicy New York steaks, two glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon and seasoned asparagus spears. People will be able to relax not only watching the flames but hearing our stream that wanders next to the patio and viewing the interesting water basin attached to the water wall. The plantings are a mix of texture, color and are reflective or our rich northwest diversity outside.  The landscape is designed to use water in a smart and an environmentally friendly way. All three water features provide sound, movement and easy water feature care long term with little water resources used. The planter beds have low water requirements after initial establishment and as always, are habitat friendly.  This wonderful garden captures all the elements of life: Stone, Water, Fire, Earth, Metal and Wood.

Hays & Associates
The Guest Room

The space is an example of a Creative and Beautiful alternative to adding a room on to your home.  It’s also a place to retreat to, or perhaps a studio or study.  All of which is set in an illuminated living environment.

Naturescapes & Watergardens
YOUR  BACKYARD

Thanks for inviting us to your backyard.  Stroll up the spacious natural stamped concrete steps to the upper patio.  Feel the sensation of stepping into a calming world.  Have a seat at the bistro table and enjoy the sanctuary of your backyard.  Take in the sweet sounds of the birds and the gurgling, splashing sounds of the cascading stream.  Smell the delightful fragrance  of the flowering ornamentals and the thirty foot tall evergreen trees.  Watch the kids on the putting green as they compete to hole that long putt…while developing lifelong skills.  Laugh with your friends, relax and enjoy an appetizer in your backyard.

Schultz & Long
The Wright “Now” Garden Room

If the amazing, Frank Lloyd Wright, could be here to create a new outdoor living room, what might it look and feel like?  That’s what Richard Schultz of Schultz and Long Landscape Architecture, LLC asked himself. Schultz decided to attach an unusual cedar pergola to the side of a “unisonian house” wall. The pergola has unique stylized ‘tree-like’ columns to support the roof canopy. Below the roof and on a cross of slab pavers, sits a rusted steel fireplace which has a stainless steel throat to reflect the flame. The other side of this room is protected by a horizontally banded, rusted steel screen. A fireplace of twisted stainless steel lies within this hemisphere.  The “Wright Now Garden Room” is softened by a wonderful variety of ‘architectural native and beyond’, easy care trees and plants. Lovers of mid-century architecture will not want to miss this one.

Southwest Landscapes

At Southwest Landscape our experienced team of professionals has taken a dream and turned it into reality. This handcrafted beautiful rustic Italian inspired design will turn any plain backyard into a relaxing retreat; perfect for entertaining, enjoying a delicious meal, or just simply relaxing in a small piece of paradise right at home. This design has an inviting, and unique hand constructed grand arched entry way that leads into a beautiful open haven with two gorgeous state of the art fire and water features; one in the center of the courtyard. Once you are inside the courtyard there is a rustic cedar pergola complete with an enticing bench swing for comfort and relaxation, perfect for admiring all of the environmentally friendly foliage, beautiful pops of color, and water features throughout this dreamscape. The customized choice and placing of rock and stone tie the entire garden together giving it an exquisite rustic Italian ambiance that everyone will marvel at and enjoy. At Southwest Landscape, we make visions and dreams come true.

The Wall and Borlin Landscape Services
Making Spaces for Memories

Making spaces for memories takes into account that not all gardens are created equal. We have created four garden terraced beds, surrounding the Architectural stone patio. The terrace walls are the perfect sitting height for all your family and friends. The walls were built with a Cultured Stone product that gives the look of real stone for less cost in installation. Also used for the terrace walls is recycled concrete creating a unique one of a kind look.  The outdoor fireplace anchors the garden space and is finished with corresponding Cultured Stone and the hearth is capped with architectural concrete caps that match the caps on the walls. Also the garden has a formal water feature that has three medallion water spouts that flow into a garden pool.

The outdoor kitchen space completes the garden and there is no better way to take advantage of living outdoors than to bring the kitchen outside. A stone cabinet with a polished concrete countertop featuring a state of the art gas grill, sink and stainless steel cabinet doors.  The garden is planted with a mix of native northwest plants and trees adding color with annuals and perennials. The colors, textures and overall design will fill your eyes with possibilities and memories for you to take home and think of creating a garden of your own.

Contributors to the Garden Display:

• Lisac’s Fireplace and Stoves
• Evergreen Gas
• Mutual Marerials
• Smith Rock
• NW Natural Appliance Center
• Next Level Building and Remodeling