I always look forward to the Plant Industry Alliance (PIA) annual Expo in Las Vegas in August. This year’s Plantscape Industry Expo (PIE) was AMAZING! Innovative products, fascinating speakers and incredible living art displays. It seemed everywhere you look, creative, inspired people were talking about new products and the latest in technology and design.

This year, we had a great team attend from Good Earth Plants and GreenScaped Buildings. Debbie Hopkins, Dawn Weatherford, Kerry Bauer and I got the chance to meet up with some colleagues and exchange some ideas while learning about the latest in plants. We even got to see a new plant, a type of Mandeville, that has a large hanging pink flower that will be perfect on one of our living walls.

Among the new products was a Living Wall system that is an air scrubber, a stand-alone plant “Tower,” and a living wall that is designed to quickly and easily hang on a wall with a big picture frame around it. It brings new meaning to the term “living art!”

I was honored to be asked to give a quick IGNITE presentation on green roofs, one of my favorite topics. It is always so interesting to hear feedback and answer questions from people about what we do. In addition, I was able to meet up with some close colleagues Bill Lyon, Bill Meade and Peter Herrera. Seeing them always inspires me!

Out team received an Award of Excellence for the green roof we installed at the Fallen Star art project on UCSD’s Campus. We also picked up another Award of Excellence for the living wall we created at Fashion Valley Mall. I was honored to receive an award for having presented the third largest number of Lunch and Learn Programs to the Architecture and Design community.

We were all happy and tired after the Expo but we came back filled with ideas too. There is nothing like being around a large group of like-minded people to get your creativity flowing! I am already thinking about next year and looking forward to planting some of those very cool hanging pink flowers in a new living wall.