I love to go to flower and garden shows. It's fun meeting new plants and seeing what's popular each year.  This year's San Francisco Flower and Garden Show was no exception. The most frequent plants we saw in displays this year was the Strawberry Tree, Arbutus unedo 'Maritima' and various Euphorbias.  But after a few years of visiting, I realized there was more to be gotten from the experience.  I began paying attention to how they were making everything look so beautiful and tried to pick up gardening and display tips. 

This year I was especially impressed with two easy ideas I saw there. The first used old barrel staves (possibly from old wine barrels).  They nailed each end of the wooden stave to a wall, so that the stave was horizontal.  Because of the natural curve in the stave this gave them just enough space to tuck 4 by 4 inch pots behind it.  They put several of these in a vertical column and made a very inexpensive and cute display area. 

The next idea is even easier.  We all know that mulch is good for our plants,; it helps prevent moisture loss. Some of us may even have tried using stones or gravel as mulch in our potted plants.  But these designers took it a step further, and laid out the stones in a pattern.  This was a real eye-catcher. 

There will be more garden shows coming up, so there will be more to learn.