There is always an element of theater at the Chicago Flower & Garden Show: greenhouse-grown flowers induced to bloom off-season, delicately placed props that would never last in a real outdoor setting. But there are also bunches of great gardening ideas to be found.
To search out some of those useful ideas, we enlisted Wheaton gardener Pamela Starr (right) to tour the show before it closed March 19 and look for smart tips, solutions and combinations. Starr, program coordinator for continuing education at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, is a longtime gardener now on the lookout for ways to redo her front yard, which she says she did in the traditional, “not very interesting” lawn-and-evergreens look 13 years ago.
Roaming the Navy Pier exhibition hall on March 14, her 52nd birthday, she scrutinized every inch of the plantings for ideas that might work for her and other gardeners.
Here are some she singled out.
