Don Marshall

Helps get the show off the ground

Environmental horticulture instructor Don Marshall and his students at Lake Washington Technical College work behind the scenes to create the display gardens at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show. By late December the college's greenhouses are a microcosm of the show, stuffed with plants being prodded into leaf and bloom for the annual February event.

Q: Do you just throw your students into the fray?

A: I'm teaching mostly adults who've been hairdressers and cops and acquired many life skills before joining this program.

Q: How many students help?

A: There are 50 in the program, but alums come back, too. Starting Saturday of set-up week, the students move in down there. I'm pointing, directing, delegating; it's the biggest headache and the biggest high of the year for me. Many of the designers couldn't pull off their gardens without all the free labor.

Q: Do you move around those big rocks?

A: No, but we shovel sawdust and mulch, lay stone, plant, groom, stick moss between pavers.

Q: How do you get the plants to bloom in time?

A: I always tell the designers that if they need two trees, bring me four. Forcing is an art; we move plants back and forth between the warm house and the cooler one. We bring the bulbs in January 5th to get them to pop in time.

Q: Are some plants easier to force than others?

A: I've never brought a sunflower into bloom in February. Everyone wants burgundy foliage, but the light isn't intense enough now, so the foliage comes on green. We encourage designers to choose plants like forsythia and hellebores that bloom in early spring anyway, and then we just nudge them. Last year a wisteria flowered two weeks early — there are so many disasters.

Q: How about set-up — any disasters there?

A: Worst was the year that a rock-placer hose exploded and blew hydraulic fluid all over Fremont Garden's display. We had to replace or clean oil off every single plant.

Q: Every year, it seems like one or two plants show up everywhere. Which are this year's stars?

A: Hostas and heucheras, in every color. Designers want more deciduous trees, so we're forcing everything from crab apples to dogwoods.

Q: What do your students get out of all this work and anxiety?

A: It's a networking extravaganza; many of them get jobs at the show. I always say that if we just went as ticket holders, we'd miss so much.