SNEAK PREVIEW : CHICAGO FLOWER & GARDEN SHOW

What's the first sign of Spring in Chicago ? If you said road construction you're a Chicagoan for sure. To me it the Chicago Flower and Garden Show. Once you step inside you will discover a world of Spring splendor and the snow outside on the ground is but a bad memory.

I arrived early to preview the Chicago Flower and Garden Show at Navy Pier. Not long after Mr. Brown Thumb appeared and I ran into Beth Botts from the Chicago Tribune.

Alice's Wonderland

There were 27 inspirational gardens with themes that celebrates Chicago as a great theatre town-Shakespeare in the Garden, Broadway in Bloom , Bye Bye Birdie, Miss Saigon, Wicked , Joseph the Amazing Techicolor Dreamcoat and Alice in Wonderland . All were done very well but I thought that the Alice in Wonderland was outstanding. There were also theatrical tablescapes, some of which were absolutely breathtaking.

This Tablescape by Ken Puttbach, Creative Director, Flaire Design Studio in Andersonville was my favorite hands down.

The Jeckle and Hyde-Prairie Restoration was wonderful as was the Great Performances Through the Eyes of a Child which had three gardens that captured the Three Pigs, Hansel and Gretel and the Billy Goats Gruff.

Hansel and Gretel

The Three Little Pigs

The very popular American Girl garden is Lanie Holland's backyard. Lanie is the 2010 American Girl of the Year and her story is about getting outside and exploring nature. She has a little pizza-shaped circle outlined in bricks where she grows the toppings of her sister's favorite dish. This is sure to be a hit with the young ladies.

Entrance to Lanie's Garden ( Notice the pizza pie circle )

Tomorrow will be the grand opening and there will be lots to see and do, including many seminars with famous speakers and presentations by some of Chicago's renowned chefs. I missed last year's show but glad I could at least attend this year's preview.

So shake off your winter doldrums and come on out for a breath of Spring.











Written by Carolyngail at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago
All rights reserved

RATED R : WINNIE THE POOH

Winnie the Pooh wasn't popular when my kids were young so I wasn't that familiar with the story . Once Disney purchased the rights and made cartoons and movies of it sales jumped to over a billion a year . It is one of the most popular and beloved cartoons for young children today.

My 15-month-old granddaughter Lea will stop whatever she's doing to watch Pooh and friends and nothing short of an earthquake can divert her attention.

As her grandmother I carefully watch what she takes in and most of the Pooh stuff is fine, with the exception of one character : Rabbit. Rabbit is the gardener and his life revolves around the vegetable garden. What's wrong with that picture? Somewhat like putting a fox in charge of the hen house.

Now I know that kids need to have their Easter Bunny, Santa and the Tooth Fairy but I have a bit of a problem with a rabbit as a gardener.

I'm trying to raise the next generation of gardeners here and someday I'll have to spill the beans to Lea on Pooh's friend rabbit.

In the following cartoon Rabbit the Gardener calls the crow the biggest enemy of the garden. Good one ! Both are now on my garden enemies most wanted list.


Written by Carolyngail at Sweet Home and Garden Chicago
All rights reserved

GETTING INTO GARDENING SHAPE

They've already started Spring training down in Tennessee. Nashville Garden Examiner's Dena Bolton gives us a preview of what we Chicago gardeners will be doing in another month or so .

Thanks for sharing this article with us, Dena .


We had beautiful weather this weekend in Tennessee! The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I was outside in my garden. I got lots of the dead cut back that was left from the winter. I added compost and mulch to several of my flower beds. I got other beds ready for planting. I raked and clipped and pruned and cleaned up around the yard all weekend.

I cannot move that well this morning.

There is something we gardeners tend to forget during the winter months, while we peruse seed and bulb catalogs and read and write and talk about gardening. We sit inside wishing for spring, wishing for the day that we can start getting our gardens back in shape. We forget, however, that we ourselves are not in gardening shape.

I once heard a personal trainer on television say that gardeners do everything everyday that he has his clients do in the gym. We stretch, bend, squat, lift. We do a lot of walking, especially if we have a good-sized yard. I have a sloped yard. I realize how much of a slope there is when I start walking back up the hill from the bottom of our property. Guess this means that I really do not need a Stair Master.

My point is this – we probably should start out gradually working our way up to the strenuous activity that gardening requires. We need to realize that we have been stuck inside during a particularly long and cold winter and have not been using a lot of those muscles we normally use when gardening. Even those who might actually visit the gym will find that they are using different muscles when they start working in their gardens again on the first nice day or weekend that we have experienced in a while. We need to realize that we cannot do everything that needs to be done in one day or in one weekend. We need to realize that those 40-pound bags of compost or potting soil that we tossed around like they weighed virtually nothing last fall do actually feel like they weigh about 80 pounds each in the very early spring. We need to realize that all of the bending and squatting that only caused us to work up a sweat last summer can now make it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. In other words, we need to start out gradually. We might even consider doing some stretching exercises before attacking our yards. We should remember to drink lots of water as we progress, since this helps to keep those underused joints and muscles lubricated. We need to remember that just as we cannot get our gardens back into shape overnight, neither can we get back into gardening shape in one day.

Am I going to take my own advice? Well … the sun is shining again this morning, and the birds are singing ….