Invasion of the pod people: New England Spring Flower Show 2008
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By the time March rolls around, we New Englanders are through with merely being SAD — we’re exasperated. (Seriously; have you seen NH’s snowfall statistics?)
So, really, it’s no surprise that the New England Spring Flower Show is consistently packed to the gills with nearly 100,000 of the Northeast’s winter survivors, all straining to catch a glimpse of green to tide them over until the earth wakes up and starts blooming again. For this annual event, the Bayside Expo Center surreally transforms into a lush garden paradise.
Every year, the Flower Show takes on a new theme, and encourages its exhibitors to run wild with it. For 2008 (marking the 137th show), they chose “Rhapsody in Green,” a celebration of eco-friendly and sustainable horticulture. ” ‘Green’ doesn’t have to mean dull and practical,” exclaims the Mass Hort website. “This year, we’ll show the cutting-edge, sensual and colorful side of responsible gardening.” And the exhibitors delivered, filling the Bayside with battery-powered lawn mowers, solar-powered trash cans and rain gardens.
Here are the highlights. For the full image gallery, click here to view it at our Flickr page. (Note: If you enjoy this recap, stay tuned for our coverage of D2E Boston, which kicks off at the Hynes Convention Center next week. You might also want to check out our notes from our last trip to the Bayside, for Boston’s inaugural Going Green Expo.)
Upon entering the showroom, visitors were greeted by this massive metal spheroid made by sculptor Chris Williams.
The word of the day was “xeriscapes,” or landscaping that relies on plants that have a reduced need for water. The city of Boston’s Parks & Recreation Department put together a little display they deemed “Green on Green” to show off the low-irrigation plants they’ve incorporated into their landscaping (the roster includes Moses in the Bulrushes, Lavender Cotton, Variegated Umbrella Plant, Cabbage Palm, Yu Hwa Ginger, Swedish Ivy, Capita Yew and Hicks Yew). Here’s what they had to say about “Green on Green”:
[It] conveys the ability to construct a creative floral presentation with the use of carefully selected water-conserving plant materials, a 100% solar-powered trash compacting receptacle, and a wire recycling bin, while demonstrating how the City of Boston’s open spaces can integrate green practices with beauty.
Boston, you’ve got solar-powered dumpsters. The future is now!
Here’s another xeriscape, this one from Tranquil Lake Nursery. You probably can’t tell from my crummy photo, but the plants are poking out of a bed of sparkly sea glass.
Froggy went a-courtin’ … and got shot down pretty hard, apparently.
I don’t know if the MassHort judges have a category for “Most Resembling a Hallucinogenic Fever Dream,” but if they did, there’s no question that Fine Garden Art’s exhibit would win, hands-down, with their tribute to monocots — such as oats, spelt, wheat and corn. From their promo blurb:
What does ‘GRASS’ mean to you? A lawn, horse food, marijuana? ‘Grass’ belongs to a vast botanical family of plants that have forever been indispensable to life on earth. This exhibit honors the contribution of this family of plants to the whole family of man. Let us give thanks.
Whatever your definition of grass, we can agree that it took a lot of it to make this tableau. This display has everything: mysterious glowing cones, 7-foot-tall pillars of undulating grain, rusty scythes and an enormous sidewinding cornucopia.
Here, Chris Williams’s giant iron moose wades in a koi pond, munching on pond grasses.
On to the flower-arranging design competition. The motif here is “Tornado.”
To be honest, this portion of the flower show still sort of mystifies me. But it looks great!
Neuton came packing their slick battery-powered, no-emissions lawn mowers and haulers. These guys aren’t new to the green party — they’ve been in business since 1985.
Here we are at the dealer’s row. (Would you believe that those eerily lifelike flowers in the first picture are actually just corn starch and Elmer’s glue?)
Of course, I can never make it out of the flower show without scooping up a plant or two (dozen) to spruce up my sad little apartment container garden. These are my trophies!
Well, OK, this little guy didn’t actually come from the flower show — but his Talavera-style perch did!
