Sorticulture, Everett, WA

Sorticulture is a garden art festival that we love, love, love. It's held in a beautiful grassy park that has huge trees that provide some shady areas, which is nice if it's a hot one. The garden this year was named Pour...the landscape was designed by Susan Browne of Susan Browne Landscape Design. She designed a courtyard with raised beds surrounding a cozy seating area to enjoy a glass of wine. The chairs were made from recycled wine barrels...simply beautiful. The arm rests were slotted with a place to hold a wine glass. Steve designed and built the pergola out of reclaimed steel from scrap that he has been saving, I think the result was a truly beautiful piece.    

2011 NW Flower and Garden Show--Run Piggies Run!!

This year's garden show at the Convention Center in Seattle was a complete blast! The amount of preparation and work that goes into each garden is mind boggling. Our team consisted of a Landscape Designer-Susan Browne of Susan Browne Landscape Design, a Landcaper/Designer-James Sprague of Fancy Plants Gardens, Anders Hagen of Home Restoration and us, plus a ton of volunteers. The theme of this years Garden Show was 'Once Upon a time...' our entry was based on The Three Little Pigs. The name of the garden was Run Piggies Run!! This year I wanted to include a few pictures of the actual process of putting the garden together...it's amazing to watch the garden being built from beginning to end. Take a little peek into this miniature world of The Three Little Pigs...Run Piggies Run!!


Steve wrangling the stump that will be placed in front of the Big Bad Wolf's den



Lifting huge rocks into place

Making the retaining wall around the, soon to be placed, brick house

The framework for the wolf den

The stump is placed in front of the wolf den. Brick house has been placed. Some sawdust has landed.

The Brick House with it's pretty railing

The beginnings of The Stick House, the paddle wheel behind, waiting for placement

The finished garden...beginning with The Straw House

The Big Bad Wolf's laundry on right...Grandma's night gown, sheep skin ('A wolf in sheeps clothing') and his everyday attire (jeans and suspenders). BB's mailbox, and the wolf den.

Wolf's den and his campfire and cooking pot, and a cool metal sculputure made by our friend Chas Guidry.

Inside view of den.

Pond with paddle wheel.

Brick house done up right! Metal railings by Steve.

The Stick House

Sign on front of The Stick House

West Seattle Project

Recent Lampwork project

NW Flower and Garden Show 2010 garden gate.

This years garden was designed by Susan Browne and Pam Richards. The landscaper was James Sprague, with Fancy Plants Gardens. The garden had a beautiful water feature created by Falling Waters Nursery in Monroe (they are giving a no charge class on making your own water feature in March, we'll be there!!). Seattle Hardscapes Tom Fitzgerald and his team installed the rock work. Ironidiom (that's us) provided the metal gate.

It was a fun five days at the NW Flower and Garden Show in Seattle. An awesome team made the vision of Susan and Pam come together beautifully. Many, many people commented that it was their favorite garden. In the end the judges must of loved it too, they awarded it a Gold metal. The colors used in the garden were yellow, black, and white. One heck of alot of work goes into putting the gardens together and afterwards taking it apart! Awesome job team!

2010 NW Flower and Garden Show

Pergola Spring & Winter 2008

Recent work (2008)

Recent work (2008)

A sampling of work from 2007

2007 was a busy year for us!

2007 Flower & Garden Show

What a fun and exciting time we had at this years show! Steve spoke with a bazillion people during the show and had the pleasure of meeting Ciscoe. The garden designer was Greg Butler who designed the Highline Botanical Garden, and what a great job he did. He had the challenge of designing a garden around the sculptures of Seattle Solstice, Klein Art/Fab, and the two gates & pergola from us, Iron Idiom. It all came together very nicely, they finished with 5 minutes to spare before the final bell, how do you spell STRESS? They need to have a show about making a designer garden on HGTV!