I’m back from Boston and I see we’re in for thunderstorms today. Thank g-d I got back just in time! It would have been terrible to have to have missed thunderstorms on the last day of the pottery sale.
So what did we do in Boston? Besides the nephew’s bar mitzvah and the giant seder? Flower and Garden Show!
There were a lot of succulents at the Boston Flower and Garden Show. And they were expensive too, compared to California prices. But most of all the show was small, very commercial and crowded. The show gardens were different than we are used to. Out here, they are designer’s show gardens; in Boston they are nursery’s show gardens. The difference is immediately obvious – showing old product rather than inspiring with new designs. I was amazed that they all had clumps of evergreens on display. I mean, really, evergreens at your spring garden show? That’s what you use to inspire new customers?
I didn’t take any pictures, and I think that says it all. Since we missed the SF show; anybody know a good source for SF Garden Show pictures?
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March 31st, 2010 at 8:32 pm
Those people back east don’t have it as good as us. I remember going to the garden show in Wisconsin. The SF Garden Show makes it look pretty sad. We live the good plant life. I could never go back to deciduous gardening. Clumps of evergreens are exciting when everything else is covered in snow
March 31st, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Perhaps I should stop whining about the lack of concept in this year’s gardens, then! I’m posting some photos all week, but I’m sure there’s better and more varied photos than mine out there. Michelle at Garden Porn had a great round-up. Seriously… evergreens?!
April 1st, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Have you spent any time in Boston in the winter? They have no choice! It’s easy to scoff when you live where Fuchsias and A. ferox are evergreen, but that climate inspires fascination with the latest yew cvv.
April 1st, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Also, the east coast garden show to go to is in Philly. Slightly more forgiving climate too (Though it’s funny to read the “transatlantic plantsman” guy’s first posts when he moved to Pennsylvania: SHELLSHOCKED).
April 1st, 2010 at 8:03 pm
Oh, and Megan, the evergreens are covered in snow too! In fact, some of those exciting yew cultivars are bred specifically to resist splitting under the weight of the snow.
Sorry, I’ll stop monopolizing your comments now.
April 2nd, 2010 at 6:54 am
Max –
I’m from Boston, and I recognized all the product shown in the display gardens from my neighbors’ yards from 30 years ago. BORING.
As a nursery owner, if I were putting together a display, even if I weren’t also a designer, I would want to feature plants that inspire people to want to garden in spring, not look backwards at the plants that survived the winter. But that’s just me; the show was very crowded and people seemed happy.
April 6th, 2010 at 8:27 am
I guess it is time I chime in too… There are readily available hardy plants like red and yellow twig dogwood that are amazing winter color, that could be used instead of row after row of spruce and yew in the display gardens… and why show forced spring bulbs at over one foot on-center massing? If you can’t afford to do a blooming mass of color, design something that doesn’t look so sad and pathetic! The other weird thing at the Boston show was they were showing Phormium in the display gardens… is it being sold as an annual on the east coast?
April 30th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
I just came across a post from last year about the historical suckiness of this show. Your points are both valid of course. I wonder if part of the problem isn’t a greater dominance of corporate nurseries back there? I don’t know, I didn’t care about plants until I moved to Cali. and stopped getting Burpees.