From Thursday to Sunday last week, gardeners, florists, and related professionals turned the show floor of the Washington State Convention Center into a jungle for the famous Northwest Flower & Garden Festival.

Whereas one might find booths of figurines, comics, art, and other merchandise during a geek convention, this event had Pacific Northwest nurseries and other gardening organizations move the very earth to show off their skills and stock. They didn't just bring in potted plants and call it a week; in just three days, they hauled in real dirt, whole boulders, and living trees, along with greenhouses and small cabins, to build their displays.

Such extravagance might leave little room for surprise that the festival is the largest flower show west of Philadelphia, and the second largest in the country. It began in 1989, and was the convention center's first event.

Jeri, 65, spoke about watching the event "evolve" since she first attended it in its second or third year.

"It's really grown in size and scope, but really it's grown in depth," she said. "You know, in those early years, there were a lot of enthusiastic people."

As more gardeners took notice, the festival's roster expanded from enthusiasts to "real experts of their areas, that have been here from all over the world."

Those experts weren't just present in the 90 or so gardening seminars, either. They were all over the show floor, chatting with guests, and answering gardening questions with encyclopedic knowledge of the needs of each plant they tended — factors like humidity, temperature, soil acidity, and sun exposure.

Continuing education credits were a key development for this year's show. Each hour-long seminar was preapproved in collaboration with Seattle University's Master Gardener program. Yet the seminars, like the Pacific Northwest soil, were far from dry.

Kelly D. Norris, author of New Naturalism: Designing and Planting a Resilient, Ecologically Vibrant Home Garden, gave a lecture about a category of plants he called "generalists," who thrive in a wide range of environments.

An artist as much as a horticulturist, Norris weaved metaphor and anecdote into scientific data about the odd places certain plants can be found.

"Our gardens... are not islands," Norris said. "In fact, they're quite porous. I think, often, of gardens as patches in a greater ecological quilt, in which the urgency of contemporary, uncertain times is to find a way to begin to stitch together those pieces, and hopefully end with a stronger fiber."

He said he was exploring ways to "fuse the boundaries of sorts, increase that porosity of our gardens to the world around them, to reimagine what the interface of horticulture and ecology might look like in the nature of place that we are asked to come to work."

He framed planting as something that should be done with a sense of where the plant comes from, and as an "anthropogenic" act, something done almost exclusively by humans, and perhaps something that defines them.

As an anecdote, he mentioned his husband — also a gardener — and that "I often value the time I spend being in my garden, whether I actually seem to get anything done or not. And maybe some of you feel the same way."

Norris was right; Jeri and other attendees certainly shared the sentiment. Jeri said her favorite part of gardening was "being outside, hearing the birds and the bees, hearing the kids playing in the yard a block over, smelling the soil, watching something first poke its little head out, and following it through the season and seeing how it changes."

It can be meditative, she said, "as long as you don't get caught up trying to make the perfect garden. That's when it becomes work."

In the vendors hall, which had everything from potted plants and statues to bamboo bedspreads and hot sauce, University of Washington grad student Abigail Steitz, 29, was running a booth offering a precise approach to gardening. So far, many people who did treat gardening as work had shown interest in her startup, the Lit Garden Project.

"Gardening is really my passion, and I have eight years in the software industry," Steitz said. "I want to transition it into gardening. My project is for people to be able to map the sunlight in their yard using their phones."

After getting her master's in business, Steitz, who identified herself as a Lesbian, will even be competing in the Dempsey Student Startup Competition. That certainly sounds like work, but still, Steitz echoed Jeri and Norris:

"My favorite part of gardening is just sitting in the grass, and watching the sun, and watching the grass wave," she said. "That's really the best part."

For those who might not have a yard, there was a seminar on taking care of potted plants. For those tempted by rascals, there was an entertaining presentation by gardening superstar Ciscoe Morris, about a troublemaker species he wished he'd never introduced to his yard.

On the main stage each morning, pairs of famous gardeners faced off in friendly battles of aesthetics in "Container Wars," a competition about building a superior miniature garden in under an hour.

Any newcomers to gardening might look at the sheer variety of plants, and the level of mastery on display at the festival, and be overwhelmed. But everyone at the show, hobbyist or expert, had to start somewhere.

"I've worked in yards since the mid-'80s, and I got really serious about gardening when I bought my first home," Jeri said. "And the yard was... you could tell someone loved it, but that it had been neglected for a very long time."

The easiest point of entry, Jeri said, would be visiting any number of our wonderful local nurseries, where the staff can make plant recommendations and answer questions about gardening for newbies.