Summary: A great place to pick up landscape design ideas for the small yard landscape along with the backyard, front yard and patio area is at the Spring Flower Shows. You’ll find tools and garden gadgets galore along with ways of using old items in new ways.
Ever since the final day of last years Spring Flower Show, committees all over America have been busy planning for this year’s spectacles. Over the years a wealth of experience has been gleaned in the forcing of plants and bulbs, with the result that each succeeding year brings us new surprises in backyard, frontyard and small yard landscape… and do not forget the patio. The Spring Flower Shows have become a part of our way of life is best indicated by the ever increasing number of communities who are sponsoring them and the mounting attendance as well. No setting seems too elaborate, whether it be an art museum, an auditorium or a bank. In fact, the problem today in the larger cities is to find adequate space and the necessary facilities to stage a modern Flower Show.
The time was when most Flower Shows consisted of dozens of great displays in small landscapes of potted plants and specimen cut flowers which were noteworthy for their high degree of cultured perfection. These displays for the most part were primarily spectacular, and though they evoked loud exclamation of enthusiasm, they were quickly forgotten.
Today, on the other hand, most of the Shows feature gardens large and small, many of which convey landscape ideas which can easily be adapted by the thousands of homeowners who visit the Shows.
Demonstrations and practical methods of handling gardening problems are other features which numbers of visitors enjoy. New gadgets (and what gardener isn’t looking for short cuts) sprayers, rakes, hoes, lawn mowers, fountains, BBQ, seeds and plants are eagerly sought after. Almost every visitor simply feels that they must buy something to take home with him or to give to a friend.
To be practical for a moment, let us ponder a few questions about Flower Shows. What do they accomplish? First, last and always they give us all a “lift” – a welcome change from the fading but persistent drabness of Winter. Great masses of color, the vision of a green lush fertilized lawn, the sight of green things growing and flowering, the music of a rippling waterfall, the dainty and delicate charm of some choice flower arrangements – all these features appeal to the eye and stimulate the imagination.
What can the garden enthusiast (novice or seasoned plants-man) hope to learn at the great Spring Show? New plants and how to use them, old standbys arranged in new settings, the importance of design and what can be accomplished in a limited space – all these are lessons, designs and ideas to take home and try in the landscape or patio. Color combinations that are different, a new use for an empty nail keg, a combination of several kinds of ground covers, how to use iron stove urns and old baskets for flower decorative containers – it actually makes me weary to go on evaluating all the ideas that abound at the Spring Flower Shows. In fact most visitors only cease to collect ideas when their feet “give out.”
Yet must we always be practical and analytical about Flower Shows? Frankly I think any visitor who does not enjoy watching the reactions of others misses a good part of the Show. Personally, I like to wander about, and listen to the comments of the spectators because they reveal so much. “What wouldn’t I give for a lawn like that.” “Why don’t my tuberous begonia plants flourish, and look healthy like those there?” “It must be great to have a green finger, or a green thumb or whatever they say people have who can grow things easily – me – I just can’t make anything live – but I love to look at them just the same.” “Ain’t those big red tulips wonderful?”
Yes, and there are other kinds of comments too – the nostalgic sighs and half whispers of elderly folk who often forget themselves, and “think out loud,” so to speak, as they glance at the various exhibits. One reminds them of a garden seen long years ago while on a trip. Another closely resembles a vista of a planting that was a part of their childhood days; to these visitors the Flower Show brings back a host of pleasurable memories. So it goes, as each visitor discovers for himself a new delight or an unexpected treat somewhere amidst the blazing acres of our modern big Shows. It makes no difference what his background may be. Even if he is not a gardener, but has merely come in to see the Show, actually plays no important part. Whether he is young or old, whether he is a veteran of many Shows or is just taking in his first, the event is certain to be a thrilling one.
One thing is sure: there is so much to satisfy the sight, smell and bearing that the memories of these varied experiences will fill many moments with the warmth and richness of their afterglow. Indeed, a Flower Show, we can say, is truly something to take with us.
