Northwest Garden Festival Runs Through Feb 22
The 2026 Northwest Flower & Garden Festival runs from February 18-22 at the Seattle Convention Center, featuring innovative displays, plant markets, and gardening workshops. The event serves as a top destination for garden enthusiasts seeking new ideas and hands-on learning opportunities.
- The theme for the 2026 festival is "Spring Parade." It will feature more than 20 fully built display gardens and over 115 free seminars and workshops. - A popular, recurring feature is the "Container Wars" reality show, where gardening personalities compete to create the best-planted containers in under an hour before a live audience. - The festival has a significant history in Seattle, having been founded in 1989 by Duane and Alice Kelly; it was the first large public event ever held at the Washington State Convention Center. - Landscape designers are given just 72 hours to transform the convention center floor into the full-scale, elaborate show gardens that visitors see. - The event is the largest garden show west of Philadelphia and is considered the second-largest in the United States. In 2020, *Better Homes & Gardens* magazine rated it the number one garden show in the country. - Annual attendance typically ranges between 55,000 and 65,000 people, with a recent high of nearly 60,000 in 2023.
