Immediately to your right as you enter is a wide flat garden sprouting with enough young trees to fill an orchard. Some of the trees are bent into chairs, others woven together to form arches and columns (we dubbed the form you see here "The Wastebasket"). This group had trouble finishing in time, and ended up borrowing some plants from us. This was the only garden allowing the public to stroll through the garden, though.

Beyond the bent trees is a garden that "coulda been a contenda"--except one of the groups designing it was an orchid grower. They created a beautiful woodland garden, with large redwood trunks, a stream splashing over a snag, a little wood greenhouse, ...and orchids. Not shy little woodland orchids, but big bright florist-shop cymbidiums, ready for a Mother's Day corsage near you. Not just in the greenhouse, but scattered all over the garden. *sigh* If only they'd been rhododendrons.

The stonework on this garden was probably the strongest of all the gardens--beautifully placed rock that suggested a waterfall without the mess of using actual water. My only complaint about this garden is that it appears they planted plants as far apart as they would in a real garden--in an exhibit like this, there's no need to leave growing room. It's a hard thing to estimate, though--we ended up with twice the number of plants we needed. This garden is planted entirely with California native plants.

Next to the native garden is a Mediterranean-esque patio with a well-executed waterfall-fountain. Behind the waterfall, the designers placed a bas relief bust that looked great viewed through the water. An outdoor kitchen was placed around the edges of the upper patio.

This garden resembled the Sensuous Garden on the other side of the center island, but it used vertical accents in front to create greater interest--what's behind that urn?--that sort of thing. Beautiful stone walls. Ultimately, though, not one of my favorites.
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