Here’s What’s Happening in December

December 1 – December 31, 2011
5 – 10 pm daily
Garden d’Lights
The enormously popular Garden d’Lights festival features over half a million lights which transform the Bellevue Botanical Garden into a blossoming winter wonderland. Inspired by plants found in Northwest gardens and gardens around the world, hundreds of volunteers have been busy making new creations. A new Tortoise will join the list of over 30 “critters” including Charlotte in her web and Willie the Slug. You won’t want to miss the “Aquarium in Lights” in the Visitors’ Center with the pulsing jellyfish and our own octopus, or the gorgeous pond and border display on the main lawn. Our new route through the garden will be enhanced with a flowing river in lights and 2 waterfalls. This year will be an exciting adventure for all ages. Plan now to attend!
Bellevue Botanical Garden
12001 Main Street, Bellevue, WA
Recorded information line: 425-451-6844
Every December, over 150,000 people enjoy this dazzling display, and many of them want to come at the same time! PLAN AHEAD! Advanced ticket purchase is required this year. $5 per person; children under 10 FREE. For more information, to purchase tickets and to find out how to enter free, visit the Garden d’Lights website. 

Saturday, December 3
5:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Treasure Hunt Open House
My Garden Nursery
Go on a Treasure Hunt at My Garden Nursery for FREE goodies. Enjoy a fun evening to get your holiday shopping done, enjoy friends, sample gourmet foods. Buy tickets to the Northwest Flower & Garden Show to go along with a cool plant or tool from the nursery. Bring food for the Volunteers of America Food Drive. (To gnome them is to love them.)
My Garden Nursery
17414 Bothell Everett Highway, Mill Creek, WA 98012
Visit their website for more information or call 425-402-1842.

Friday, December 9
3:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Saturday, December 10
10:00 am – 2:00 pm
Annual Gifts & Green Galore
Outstanding collections of greens, wreaths and swags for your holiday decorating, along with gifts and wrapping, seasonal refreshments, live seasonal music, complimentary hot drink, free Arboretum tours (especially the famous Witt Winter garden) and more! Bring the kids! Special visit by a round, jolly man bearing treats on Saturday 11 am – 1 pm. Live, seasonal music on Friday. Free admission and parking.
Arboretum Foundation
Graham Visitors Center
2300 Arboretum Drive East, Seattle, WA 98112
For more information visit their website or call 206-325-4510.

NOW through February 12
Tickets to Northwest Flower & Garden Show now on Sale!
OK all you Early Birds, act now so you can snatch up tickets for our low price of only $16 (that’s $4 off the price during the show). Tickets are on sale on our website and will be in nursery ticket outlets this weekend. You won’t want to miss the most beautiful garden show in the country, with 26 dazzling show gardens, 116 seminars by the horticulterati, and over 300 garden-related exhibitors featuring plants, tools, furniture, containers, accessorites, jewlery, garden art and more. Our PlayGarden has plenty of activities and musical acts to keep the children entertained for hours and get them in touch with nature. And children 12 and under are FREE!  NWFGS tickets are the perfect stocking stuffer for your garden-loving family and friends. ~ Janet

Here’s What’s Happening in November

Saturday, November 5
3:00 pm – 6:00 pm
“GIANTS”
Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden welcomes Ciscoe Morris and KING TV’s Evening Magazine to the Tin Theater for the Southwest King County World Premier of “Giants,” a documentary about the ruthlessly competitive world of growing pumpkins. Prepare to be amazed as you watch Pacific Northwest growers battle nature – and each other – to capture the giant pumpkin world’s ultimate prize. Narrated by actor Tom Skerritt and with a cameo appearance by Ciscoe, it’s a movie about growing the world’s largest pumpkin. And growing apart. All proceeds will go the Highline Botanical Garden Foundation for the support of the Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden.
Tickets: $25 in advance for Foundation members. General admission tickets go on sale at the Tin Theater On October 10, also $25.

Highline Botanical Garden
Tin Theater
923 SW 152nd Street, Burien, WA 98166
Visit their website for more information or call 206-391-4003.

Wednesday, November 9
6:45 pm; Lecture at 7:15 pm
“Container Confidential”
Wendy Welch
Garden designer Wendy Welch shares what she has learned in 15 years of designing, installing and maintaining container gardens. Gorgeous plant combinations of trees, shrubs, conifers, perennials and annuals will inspire you. The dispelling of some long lived mythology about container culture — drainage, soils, water, fertilizer, longevity etc. will empower you to plant successful, sustainable container gardens.
Fee: Members $5; Nonmembers $10
Northwest Horticultural Society
Center for Urban Horticulture
3501 NE 41st Street, Seattle
No reservations required
Visit their website for more information or call 206-780-8172.

Thursday, November 10
Refreshments at 7:00 pm; Lecture at 7:15 pm
“Planting in Containers & Gardening with Pots through the Seasons”
Dunn Gardens Curators’ Lecture
Charles Price & Glenn Withey
Enjoy this entertaining, informative, and ever-popular lecture by two of the region’s leading designers and the curators of the historic Dunn Gardens, Glenn Price and Charles Withey.
Seating is limited. Visit their website http://www.dunngardens.org/ to purchase tickets.
Dunn Gardens
13533 Northshire Rd NW, Seattle, WA 98177
Tickets: $ 10 members; $12 nonmenbers
To reserve tickets visit their website or call 206-362-0933.

Sunday, November 13
1:00 pm
“Handmade Garden Style”
Lorene Edwards Forkner
Join award-winning garden designer and author Lorene Edwards Forkner for an exciting look at some of the step-by-step projects in her new book, “Handmade Garden Projects.“
Northwest Perennial Alliance
Tickets: $10 nonmembers; NPA members free
Center for Urban Horticulture
3501 NE 41st Street, Seattle
Visit their website or call 425-647-6004.

Monday, November 21
6:30 pm – 9:00 pm
“Lilies”
Riz Reyes
Riz has worked at the UW Botanic Garden’s Center for Urban Horticulture and runs his own horticultural enterprise called RHR Horticulture. His garden, Landwave, is located in the Shoreline area and he is actively involved in the local horticultural community; he writes a gardening blog for seattlepi.com and his own dubbed, “The Next Generation Gardener.” He is also a part-time instructor at Edmonds Community College. Free.
Hardy Plant Society of Washington
Center for Urban Horticulture
3501 NE 41st Street, Seattle
Visit their website for more information.

Saturday, November 26 thru Saturday, December 31
5:00p.m. – 10:00 p.m. (last entry at 9:30 p.m.)
2011 “Garden d’Lights” at the Bellevue Botanical Garden
Brought to you by the Bellevue Botanical Garden Society, Garden d’Lights features over a half million lights which transform the Bellevue Botanical Garden into a blossoming winter wonderland. Inspired by plants found in Northwest gardens, hundreds of volunteers work year round to bundle strings of lights into three dimensional flowers, shrubs, and vines. In addition to artistic interpretation of plants, the volunteer team has created charming animal characters. Charlotte the spider remains a favorite and will be back in her web near the Ground Cover Garden. Look for the newest member of the menagerie in Yao Garden.
Bellevue Botanical Garden
12001 Main Street.
Recorded Information Line: 425-452-6844
Admission is $5 per person; children 10 and under are free.
Visit their website to purchase tickets. Tickets are available beginning October 15. Find out how to visit the show for FREE.

What’s Happening in December

Be sure to reserve your tickets in advance to the BBG's Garden d'Lights this year

Now through – January 1
5 – 10 pm daily
Garden d’Lights
The enormously popular Garden d’Lights festival features over half a million lights which transform the Bellevue Botanical Garden into a blossoming winter wonderland. Inspired by plants found in Northwest gardens and gardens around the world, hundreds of volunteers have been busy making new creations. A new Tortoise will join the list of over 30 “critters” including Charlotte in her web and Willie the Slug. You won’t want to miss the “Aquarium in Lights” in the Visitors’ Center with the pulsing jellyfish and our own octopus, or the gorgeous pond and border display on the main lawn. The new route through the garden will be enhanced with a flowing river in lights and 2 waterfalls. This year will be an exciting adventure for all ages. Plan now to attend!
Bellevue Botanical Garden
12001 Main Street, Bellevue, WA
Recorded information line: 425-451-6844
Every December, over 150,000 people enjoy this dazzling display, and many of them want to come at the same time! PLAN AHEAD! Advanced ticket purchase is required this year. $5 per person; children under 10 FREE. For more information, to purchase tickets and to find out how to enter free, visit the Garden d’Lights website: http://nwf.gs/cVddaN
 

December 2 – January 29, 2011
“From the Ground Up” Horticulture Quilt Art Exhibition
Artists Reception Thursday, December 2
5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Cheer up on a gray winter day with the color artistic expressions of a horticulture quilting exhibition from the Contemporary QuiltArt Association. More than 30 botany-inspired quilts will be on display at the Miller Horticulture Library. Quilts depict many plan varieties, such as skunk cabbage and clematis along with the changing of the seasons and the life cycle of a plant. Free.
Center for Urban Horticulture
3501 NE 41st Street, Seattle
For more information: http://nwf.gs/heBKD8

Thursday, December 2
Green Holidays Idea Workshop
Tom Watson
King County’s “EcoConsumer”
King County’s Tom Watson, the EcoConsumer columnist for the Seattle Times, and a regular purveyor of green tips pon local radio and TV, will share fun, innovative, money-saving ideas for ways to make your holidays greener, including homemade gifts you can make (with your kids or on your own) that people will actually be happy to receive; festive no-waster holiday wrapping and cards that don’t cost anything to make, and creative ways to find and use local foods.
Kingsgate Library
12315 NE 143^rd St., Kirkland, WA 98034
For more information: 425-821-7568

Here’s What’s Happening in November

Saturday, November 6
9 am – 3 pm
Elizabeth Miller Library Open House
The Elizabeth Miller Library is celebrating 25 years and the staff invites with an Open House. Stop by to learn about everything the Miller Library offers gardeners. Enjoy a piece of cake and a glass of punch and meet the fabulous staff of the Miller Library. There will be a free raffle for choice plants, a demonstration of the Gardening Answers Knowledgebase, a slide show of the library’s history and an exhibit of botanical art by Linda Ann Vorobik.
Elizabeth Miller Library
Center for Urban Horticulture
3501 NE 41st Street, Seattle
Information: http://nwf.gs/aLcnlm

November 6
10 am – 12 pm
Putting the Garden to Bed
The rain and dark has snuck up on us and the garden is winding down. Grab those last few days of sunshine and put your garden to bed. Fall is a fantastic time to replenish the soil that has offered you its bounty all year long. Learn inexpensive or free ways to build your soil using materials on hand. Let the Tilth gardeners show you how a little work now will pay off big time next spring.
Seattle Tilth
Good Shepherd Center
4649 Sunnyside Ave. N., Seattle, WA
Cost: $25 Seattle Tilth members; $35 nonmembers
Advance registration & payment required: http://nwf.gs/bGuR9N
For more information: 206-633-0451 x 101

Wednesday, November 10
6:45 pm
Living Green: High Concept Design Meets Sustainability
Debra Prinzing
Debra Prinzing returns to Seattle for a stint in the LA area. Debra is a well-known author and contributor to the Los Angeles Times, Garden Design, Landscape Architecture, Better Homes and Gardens, Fine Gardening, and Sunset. During her four year sojourn in Southern California Debra has learned to appreciate the design challenges of gardening with little or no water, creating outdoor living environments that reflect geography and place, and growing plants that feed the body and soul. She’ll share some of the West’s best sustainable — and high concept — design ideas, and discuss how these can be adapted to Seattle area gardens.
Northwest Horticultural Society
Center for Urban Horticulture
3501 NE 41st Street, Seattle
Information: http://nwf.gs/biv7QX
Members – $5
Non-members – $10

November 13
10 am – 4 pm
Van Dusen’s Dried Flower Sale
Bring a bit of Van Dusen style home! Visit the Van Dusen Botanical Garden for a dried flower sale offering topiaries, wreaths, bouquets and arrangements, made from materials gathered in the Garden. Held at the entrance of the garden, at the intersection of Oak Street and W. 37^th Ave. Free.
Van Dusen Botanical Garden
5521 Oak Street, Vancouver, BC
More information: http://nwf.gs/bY6DWf

November 14
10 am – 12 pm
Rehabilitative Pruning
This Plant Amnesty class covers the three most common forms of mal-pruning (tree topping, overthinning of trees and shrubs, and inappropriate shearing) and how to fix trees and shrubs that have been mal-pruned. This is an advanced course and those attending should already be familiar with principles of selective pruning. Included is discussion of watersprouts, suckers, radical renovation techniques, and crown restoration.
Plant Amnesty
Sand Point Magnuson Park, Bldg. 406
For more info: http://nwf.gs/d8yOjo
Phone: 206-783-9813
$15 general public, payable at the door
$10 Plant Amnesty members

November 21
11 am – 12:30 pm
Nature Walk through Washington Park Arboretum
The 11 am tours of each month are themed tours. November’s theme is “Fruits, Nuts & Wildlife.” Visit plants, like oaks and walnuts, that attract wildlife. Our weekend walks are led by experienced, trained, knowledgeable and engaging docents. Free.
Arboretum Foundation
2300 Arboretum Drive East, Seattle, WA
For more information: http://nwf.gs/anNiFG
Phone: 206-325-4510
Web page: http://nwf.gs/abCpku

November 27 – January 1, 2011
5 – 10 pm daily
Garden d’Lights
The enormously popular Garden d’Lights festival features over half a million lights which transform the Bellevue Botanical Garden into a blossoming winter wonderland. Inspired by plants found in Northwest gardens and gardens around the world, hundreds of volunteers have been busy making new creations. A new Tortoise will join the list of over 30 “critters” including Charlotte in her web and Willie the Slug. You won’t want to miss the “Aquarium in Lights” in the Visitors’ Center with the pulsing jellyfish and our own octopus, or the gorgeous pond and border display on the main lawn. Our new route through the garden will be enhanced with a flowing river in lights and 2 waterfalls. This year will be an exciting adventure for all ages. Plan now to attend and purchase your tickets in advance!
Bellevue Botanical Garden
12001 Main Street, Bellevue, WA
Recorded information line: 425-451-6844
Every December, over 150,000 people enjoy this dazzling display, and many of them want to come at the same time!
PLAN AHEAD! Advanced ticket purchase is required this year.
$5 per person; children under 10 FREE.
For more information, to purchase tickets and to find out how to enter free, visit the Garden d’Lights website: http://nwf.gs/cVddaN

Hope you have a great November and enjoy these events! Be sure to visit the Garden Show website for the seminar schedule which is now posted at http://nwf.gs/cPkzdq – Janet

Bellevue Botanical Garden D’Lights

Ever wonder what a holiday-lights festival would be like if gardeners designed it? Garden D’Lights at the Bellevue Botanical Garden in Washington has the answer. Every year at this time, the Bellevue Botanical Garden’s planting beds, well known for their fabulous mixed border plantings that inspire gardeners from far & wide, make way for this cheery seasonal display.

And what a magical sight to behold – a garden of flowers created with nearly a half a million lights. Talk about your winter-interest garden! Truly a labor of love, thousands of volunteer hours go into the creation of this spectacle. According to the garden’s website, hundreds of volunteers work a combined total of 10,000 hours to put it on. (Go here to learn how to get involved.)

This dazzling display can be seen each evening, 5:00pm to 9:30 pm, from now through December 31st. And the best part? This festive, family-friendly event is free. Donations are welcome and an important means of providing ongoing funding for the event. Full event details can be found here, including parking instructions.

Photo courtesy of the Bellevue Botanical Garden Society – reprinted with permission.