Almost directly opposite our garden is the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden's exhibit. They won ten gold medals, including the gold medal for the Foliage Award (for which we won the silver) and the Golden Gate Cup Best of Show. With the resources of a large botanical garden behind them, they have an edge to win the awards associated with the use of interesting or unusual plant material; in the past, they've included plants of which there are only three specimens and plants that have just been discovered in the past year. The plant Mark is gingerly touching is pretty spiky--not exactly something you'd want near a path generally. At the far end of the building, next to the botanical garden exhibit and between the exits leading to the Cow Palace's other buildings, was a large dramatic garden with a strong emphasis on hardscape (stone, metal, fountains, tile, etc.) over softscape (plants). It was hard to ignore, but I didn't like it much. First, there were all those columns--about thirty of them, I estimate. So many! They were made of Sonitubes, cardboard tubes used in pouring concrete columns, painted a neutral color. The garden with the waterfall fountain used Sonitubes, too, but only four of them and they were faux painted to look much more like real stone columns. Then there were the sculptures: terracotta colored Roman figures and silver metal abstract arcs textured using a disk sander. Each type of sculpture was interesting but the two didn't mix well. Finally, there's the blue and white "tile"--which turned out to be made out of blueprints, of all things. They tended to run when they got wet. Worse, though, they created such a busy pattern that I got a headache looking at them.

Facing UC Berkeley's exhibit across the far end is an English-style garden complete with a 3/4 scale house. Very romantic, traditional, and to my taste, boring.

I really liked this garden, called Mediterrania. The designers had some interesting ideas--daffodils on the roof and a bright aqua wall that looked really funny until they turned on the water and lighting at which point it became magic. Up behind the building was a small vineyard--about four old grapevines. I loved the doors on their building, too--each has a quarter circle on top, but the quarter circles face the same direction at different elevations. We figured the shorter door was for kids.

This garden was built by a company that sells stone urns, bowls, statues, and outdoor kitchens. Thus, it has stone urns, bowls, statues and an outdoor kitchen. It also has crystal balls and geode slices incorporated into the structures. I liked the balls--they looked like huge pink pearls--but the geode slices just looked kinda corny. This is the upper garden--the lower garden was laid out below the arch and I don't seem to have a photo of it. There was one stone urn in the lower garden I love, though...it was very Art Nouveau-ish, with swirls of petals opening up around the top of the urn.

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