Santa Rosa family’s Hall of Flowers garden is a dream fulfilled

When Jose Soto first visited the Hall of Flowers at the Sonoma County Fair, it ignited a dream. He wished that some day he, too, could create one of the extravagant display gardens that transport visitors to another time or place.

The fanciful Hall of Flowers, built every year around a theme, for decades has been a cornerstone of the fair and one of its most popular attractions. Each garden is like an elaborate set, requiring thousands of dollars of props and plants, plus time and expertise to envision and install on a tight deadline, often under challenging conditions.

For years, Soto shuttled back and forth between his home in Jalisco, Mexico, and Sonoma County, where he worked for a landscaping company. His sole focus was to make money to support his growing family, with the hope that one day they could all enjoy a new life in California together.

Every time they came to the fair, Soto suggested visiting the Hall of Flowers first, before hitting any rides.

This year, his long-held wish to create a competitive garden in the Hall of Flowers show has finally been fulfilled. He and his five sons, with support from friends and other family members, have entered an elite circle of gardeners and landscapers competing at the professional level in what the fair touts as the largest themed flower show in the country.

“This was my dad’s dream ever since he came here. Every time we came to the fair, he would be like, ‘Who does those gardens?’ He finally got to do one,” said the youngest Soto, Adrian, who is active in the Santa Rosa High School chapter of the Future Farmers of America.

Adrian was just 3 when his dad finally secured the documentation needed to bring his family to Sonoma County. Several years later, in 2012, the Sotos were able to buy the landscaping company for which the elder Jose had worked for more than 20 years. They have built the company, Highland Landscaping, into a thriving family business, with all five sons, from 33-year-old Juan down to 17-year-old Adrian, taking active roles. Daughter Alondra helps with bookkeeping and Mom Maria is the glue that holds everything together, down to making sack lunches for her husband and sons. For their Hall of Flowers entry, it’s all hands on deck.

The Sotos are among nine professional exhibitors competing for cash prizes and ribbons with display gardens in the hall. There are another eight amateur competitors who fill out the space with gardens along the edges of the cavernous Quonset hut that’s been home to the Hall of Flowers for some 70 years.

Because the show is judged using a Danish system where competitors earn points rather than competing against one another, everyone has a shot at a ribbon, although only one garden will be named Best of Show.

It was Adrian’s agriculture teacher, Jessica Fruiht at Santa Rosa High School, who first suggested his family’s landscaping business should try their hands at creating a garden for the Hall of Flowers.

Adrian, this year named one of the top three students in the state for agriculture management, at first was surprised there was something he could compete in at the fair.

“I thought it was about showing livestock and all that,” the youngest Soto said. “But this is a great opportunity for our family to get involved.”

Fruiht stepped up to help marshal resources and oversee the impressive project the Sotos have undertaken for the fair. Highland Landscaping is known for sourcing and incorporating into landscapes beautiful mature olive trees. For the fair, they went to Corning in Tehama County, a center for olive-oil production, and selected from an orchard “the perfect tree,” Adrian said. It was a special heritage tree, an Italian frontoio with an ideal trunk size, that will be the centerpiece for their garden designed to showcase Highland’s best infrastructure, hardscape and design work.

The Sotos will sell the tree to the highest bidder, with proceeds going to support the FFA program at Santa Rosa High School. Between now and Aug. 7, Fruiht is accepting offers from potential buyers who want to have an ancient olive grace their home garden. It typically costs $10,000 to buy a mature olive tree. But bidding for the fair tree starts at $6,000, which includes proper placement and planting. Fruiht will discuss with potential buyers the logistics of moving and installing the tree. (Email jfruiht@srcs.k12.ca.us for information.)

Land of the dinosaurs

At a time when sustainable designs that serve beneficial insects, pollinators and birds are trending high in the gardening world, Hall of Flowers exhibitors are challenged with creating suitable habitats for wildlife that have been extinct for 65 million years.

The fair’s theme this year is “Jurassic Jubilee,” meaning dinosaurs are loose all over the fairgrounds. But the most impressive and massive population is rumbling through the Hall of Flowers — 10 life-size animatronic beasts, all moving and roaring and threatening to trample the flowers. An 11th dinosaur will greet people and frighten fairgoers at the entrance to the Grace Pavilion, where all the whiz-bang gadgets and appliances are sold.

Greg Duncan, the longtime designer of the Hall of Flowers, persuaded the fair board to pony up an additional $150,000 on top of his usual $250,000 budget to book the attraction in hopes it will bring more kids and families into the hall.

The prehistoric menagerie arrived a little worse for wear.

“They weren’t in wonderful shape. We had to do a lot of work on them to get them all back together,” Duncan said. “They sent two guys with them, and a bunch of our crew had to get trained. But we got them put together, and they’re working.”

Back in the Jurassic period, there were no flowering plants as we know them today, Duncan conceded. But the hall is a flower show and has always focused on fantasy, so there will be the usual complement of floral eye candy.

Small dinosaur, big tree

The Sotos wound up with the smallest dinosaur, but their olive tree is the largest and oldest tree in the hall. They invested $15,000 in materials and labor and enlisted landscape architect Mark Bower, with whom they regularly collaborate, to come up with a design that evokes a time 65 to 245 million years ago, when reptiles ruled.

They brought on close family friend Cesar Nazarit, of Asapp Pro Masonry, to do some of the heavy hardscaping and help create rocks made out of straw bales and textured to look worn and cracked.

Because human life had yet to emerge, this prehistoric world had no structures that might lend themselves to the kind of fun and realistic props Duncan is known for. But there are still two watering holes in the Hall of Flowers, a couple of airborne dinos and a cool LED light display on the ceiling evoking the comet that would eventually wipe out the dinosaurs.

The Soto family is a well-oiled machine, with each member playing a different role.

“Everybody has a specialty. Francisco and Leo doing lighting and irrigation. Juan works in the maintenance department and with all the crews,” Jose Jr. said. “And my dad? He’s just everywhere. He makes sure everything is running properly.”

Leo, 27, is putting in a drip irrigation system. Most exhibitors water their gardens by hand during the fair to keep them fresh. But Leo is exacting, particularly when it comes to protecting the irreplaceable olive tree.

“We wanted to do it differently and be unique and save water, especially with this olive tree,” Leo said. “I don’t want to overwater it. I want it to be secure the whole time it’s here.”

They have incorporated simple water features — several stone columns of basalt, with water trickling over them. It’s a look that works well in a contemporary garden but evokes, for the fair, the moist rocks that might have existed in the time of the dinosaurs.

In addition to the olive tree, the Sotos also will work in some yucca and other less common garden plants that may not be historically or biologically accurate but will lend a mysterious prehistoric look to the scene.

“We’re trying to stay more on the natural side,” Leo said. “That why we’re using natural stone and an olive.”

Working, playing in harmony

The Sotos have years of experience collaborating in harmony. In addition to working in their family business, they have a respected family mariachi band, with each member, from father Jose on down the line, playing an instrument.

“We’re fully mariachis and fully landscapers,” said Jose Jr., who also founded the Luther Burbank Center Mariachi Ensemble, a group of 31 students that performs locally. After graduating from Sonoma State University with a degree in music, he joined the Luther Burbank Center staff as music specialist.

They’ve put in a lot of time and work at the Hall of Flowers, but the brothers say it’s worth it, both to show what they can do and to give back to the community they have embraced.

Said Leo, “We’re happy to do it for the first time, and to help the FFA kids.”

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 707-521-5204 or meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com.