Another home and garden show season is coming to a close and reality gardening is about to begin. Yahoo!
2011 Chicago Flower & Garden Show
I always look forward to attending flower and garden shows in March. They offer a much needed recess from the lingering winter chill. (Or in the case of opening day at the Chicago Flower & Garden Show, it offered shelter from the snow pouring sideways at 70 mph from both directions off Lake Michigan.) The smell of fresh mulch and hyacinths is like coffee for my soul—perking me up in anticipation of another garden season.
I sincerely admire the planning and creativity that goes into the artful garden displays at many of these shows. I also acknowledge the effort required to force the likes of petunias and snapdragons to bloom in early March. But sometimes I find myself snickering cynically at the implausibility of some display gardens ever sustaining themselves under natural conditions. I worry that we’re giving novice gardeners unrealistic expectations, or in some cases, just really bad ideas.
A treat for the eyes? Absolutely! Is it realistic to expect a real annual bed to bloom with such uniformity and density? Never.
I think that if a garden designer is going to take extensive artistic liberties on the show floor, sacrificing the science of gardening for pizzazz, it needs to done wholeheartedly. I’d rather see plastic flamingoes accenting a petunia bed than Juncus, an obligate wetland plant, which is perhaps the worst companion for a wet-feet weary annual.
I love this window box composition and I think even a novice gardener would understand that this floral art isn’t going to flourish on the streets of the windy city.
Smith & Hawken are design geniuses (even if they are sacrificing the soul of the company little by little—but that’s another rant altogether). The vegetable art is fabulous, and I’m relatively confident most people won’t think cauliflower grows on walls. Let’s hope, anyways.
But does the average gardener know that cyclamen (those pretty pink flowers accenting this edible herb spiral) have tubers that contain triterpinoid saponins, a compound reported to cause nausea, vomiting, convulsions, and paralysis? Toxic or not, encouraging the use of non-edible companion plants in an otherwise edible garden is a pretty bad idea.
It’s really too bad the designer choose to add some colorfully bad ideas to this display, because otherwise the design intent of this feature garden and their efforts to promote vertical vegetable gardening is highly commendable.
I have nothing to commend about this garden show foul. Someone took “The Sport of Gardening” theme a little too seriously. There is nothing appetizing—artistically or palatably—about blood red carnations in a hot dog bun.
When a designer succeeds in melding the science and art of gardening in an inspirational way, they deserve my praise.
Hands down, my favorite garden display at the Chicago Flower & Garden Show was Openlands designed by the Culliton Quinn Landscape Architecture Workshop. The goal of the Openland’s design was “to use a variety of creative and interactive means to hold rainwater in an artful and enjoyable landscape of native plants, art, and a space to relax and gather your harvest”—and they nailed it.
It was refreshing to see a show garden that incorporated multiple elements of sustainable landscape design (green roof, rain water harvesting, rain garden, local materials, etc.) with style, displayed artful craftsmanship in their hard elements, and an appreciation for native plants of the Chicago region.
The use of natural stone in the Openlands garden was fantastic, which was nice to see amid the Unilock/Paveloc empire.
I’m so over concrete pavers. Just because you can build anything with interlocking concrete blocks, doesn’t mean you should.
I’ve decided that being at a garden show is like seeing these two ladies. No really.
They look so real, tangible and personable.
The work of Australian hyperrealist sculptor, Ron Mueck
But it’s rendering; not reality. Most garden displays are inorganic snapshots of a living scene, which are rooted more deeply in artistic interpretation than science.
Nevertheless, protected by a little light-hearted cynicism, garden shows will always complete their mission to inspire and motivate me for another season in the dirt. Let’s begin!
