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Gardeners grow `magic' seeds Jim Craven photo Diane Dorigan, a Master Gardener from Jacksonville, works in the 765-square-foot demonstration garden in Compton Arena Friday. It's part of the Master Gardeners Spring Fair today and Sunday. Spring Fair produces a harvest of wonders for weekend show By BILL VARBLE CENTRAL POINT -- Volunteers scurry to put the finishing touches on a 765-square-foot demonstration garden taking shape in the Compton Arena Friday as Marlece Watson waves at a butterfly bush. "We want to be able to say to people, `You're interested in butterflies? There's the bush,"' she says. "We want to motivate people." Watson speaks as vendors schlep in pots and crates of garden goodies from artichokes to zucchini to set up on the arena floor for this weekend's Master Gardeners Spring Fair. More than 7,000 people are expected to attend the annual rite of spring today and Sunday at the Jackson County Exposition Park. The popular fair moved from its former home at the Medford Armory last year mainly because the Expo offers more room. The demonstration garden is an ambitious project to accomplish in a day, what with vegetables, shrubs, a rock garden, herbs, raised beds, trellises, small fruit trees, a little orchard and a walkway of pavers winding its way to a gurgling fountain. It's all materialized out of two large truckloads of topsoil since Thursday morning, Watson says. First came volunteers, then the dirt, then the plants, most of them on loan from area nurseries. "Like magic," Watson says. The whole thing was built by 78 gardening students. Master Gardeners learn about gardening under the aegis of the Oregon State University Extension Service and agree to give back to the community in the form of educational programs. Shannon Bennett of Jacksonville jokes with Diane Dorigan and other volunteers about a tiny tree in the garden. "It's larger than it looks." "It's 60 feet tall." In their dreams, maybe. "I'm impressed," says the OSU Extension Services George Tiger, taking in the garden. The demonstration garden is at the north end of the arena, up off the floor. Nearby is a compost bin. Next to that is an exhibit of lawn alternatives -- bark chips, mulch, gravel and ground cover plants such as phlox, blue star creeper, wooly thyme. "Lawn's pretty," Watson says. "But it's a waste of energy." During the weekend, meeting rooms near the food court in the Compton will be home to demonstrations on organic gardening, bonsai, bamboo, building soil, permaculture, orchids and cloning. Special exhibits include a child's garden and a display of pests and guests from gophers to what have you. A plant clinic will once again offer expert advice on what might be the matter with those strange plants or cuttings people bring in to be diagnosed. All Expo parking lots are expected to be open, and the building is handicapped accessible. That's the good news. Then, Norah Roadman says, there's the other news: "All the plants go back to the people who lent them to us." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA