Carolyn’s Shade Gardens is a retail nursery located in Bryn Mawr, PA, specializing in showy, colorful, and unusual plants for shade. The only plants that we ship are snowdrops and miniature hostas. For catalogues and announcements of events, please send your full name, location, and phone number (for back up use only) to carolyn@carolynsshadegardens.com. Click here to get to the home page of our website for catalogues and information about our nursery and to subscribe to our blog.
The 2012 Philadelphia International Flower Show took place last week. It is the world’s largest indoor flower show and can be a bit intimidating. My husband and I find that Friday night is a less crowded time to go especially if you want to photograph the exhibits. This year’s theme was Hawaii, which was a great choice for me because I attend for the “show” aspects and not to get ideas for my garden.
One of the most interesting parts was the entrance where visitors walked underneath a realistic sounding wave made of screens projected with changing sea life and striped with white flowers evocative of Hawaii. Created by Valley Forge Flowers of Wayne, PA, it was a full immersion experience as if you were inside the wave:
View of the wave from outside.
There were many scenes of Hawaii (or at least what us easterners think Hawaii looks like), and surf boards were very popular:
My husband and I volunteer to staff the exhibit of the Delaware Valley Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society. I am not a rock gardener but this organization is worth joining for its lectures and plant sales alone. Their exhibit was very well received and included a tufa outcropping and hypertufa troughs:
My absolute favorite part of the show is the competitive classes where regional gardeners enter their well grown plants to receive ribbons. This area, known as the hort court, takes up half the area of the show. Here are the bulb classes:
The competitive classes are filled with well grown individual plants. Some of them come to the flower show year after year, but I never tire of seeing them:
My favorite exhibit was put on by the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society and featured the use of edible plants in an ornamental landscape. Fruits and vegetables are just as beautiful as any other plants, and this exhibit showed some very innovative uses such as a 10 foot wall of lettuce, a large pergola covered with cherry tomatoes, and a wooden walkway through healthy, gorgeous edible plants:
I really enjoyed the flower show this year, and, if you couldn’t visit in person, I hope you enjoyed your virtual tour.
Carolyn
Facebook: Carolyn’s Shade Gardens now has a Facebook page where I post single photos, garden tips, and other information that doesn’t fit into a blog post. You can look at my Facebook page here or click the Like button on my right sidebar here.
Nursery Happenings: My Hellebore Extravaganza open house sale is Saturday, March 24, from 10 am to 3 pm. To view the Woody Plant Offer Catalogue and place an order by March 26, click here. To view the 2012 Snowdrop Catalogue, click here. Snowdrops are still available for pick up at the nursery, but mail order is closed.
If you are within visiting distance and would like to receive catalogues and information about customer events, please send your full name and phone number to carolynsshadegardens@verizon.net. Subscribing to my blog does not sign you up to receive this information.
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CAROLYN'S SHADE GARDENS 