Name: Kenton Morris
Position: Show director, Chicago Flower and Garden Show
Years: Eight
Q. How did you become director of the garden show?
A. I worked for WGN radio for years. I did a little bit of everything. We were looking at developing revenue through events at the station. We did the international adventure travel show, we did the DuPage air show, did a woman’s show, and the flower show was the one that really took off. About four years ago, our original show director left. I had been doing the marketing for them, and we worked out an arrangement. I had always wanted to work for myself, so I took over management of the entire show.
Q. What does running the show involve?
A. It sort of breaks up into six months of a normal job, three months of absolute chaos, and three months of relative peace [laughs]. My job is to obtain the gardens, make sure that the move-in goes properly, that we move out properly, that every aspect of it runs together.
Q. This year’s show includes a 10,000-square-foot Enchanted Walled Garden and a Medieval Ruins garden. Where do you find gardens like that?
A. I approach people who have done gardens in the past who I think would be good at doing gardens, and try to stimulate them to come up with creative ideas. The craziest thing that ever happened was I got a knock on my door from the local garden club, and they wanted to know if we wanted them to participate in the local garden walk. I convinced them to enter the show, and they did a small garden. They got so excited the next year they did a bigger garden and won best in show, and it was all because somebody knocked on the door.
Q. What kind of plants do you have in your own garden?
A. I haven’t a clue. My partner in crime, she does most of the gardening. I’m good at mowing, and I’ve learned a lot about shade plants, and that’s it.
Q. You’re planning on having more than 25 gardens for this year’s show. How do you get them all moved into the hall?
A. Very carefully. We plan out very meticulously the move-in for the show. It used to be that if the show opened on Saturday, we could start on Monday. Now we have to start the previous Wednesday to get the show in on time. We have trucks coming from all over the country. We have stone from Pennsylvania and we have Irish stone that’s brought from Ireland. We have a truckload coming from Florida with tropical plants that needs to arrive at a certain time so the plants don’t freeze, and we go to suppliers in Georgia and Mississippi to find the right kind of sod. We’ll have 200 truckloads and they all have to be scheduled so that they’re not bumping into one another.
Q. Inevitably, with such a huge operation, things go wrong. What are some of the situations you’ve had to manage?
A. Last year, the floor collapsed the Friday before the show opened. It was a horrible scene. I was in the office at the time, which was right above where the floor collapsed, and I walked out, and I said the show’s over, that’s it. Fifteen minutes later, my partner Mike Hardy came back to me. He had come up with an entire contingency plan in his head in 15 minutes. Nobody can do anything to me after that. If we can survive that, we can survive anything.
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The Chicago Flower and Garden Show will be held Saturday through March 17 at Navy Pier, 600 E. Grand Ave. Hours: 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sundays. Admission: $10 adults (weekdays), $11.50 adults (weekends); $4 children ages 4-12 (weekdays), $5 children (weekends). 312-595-PIER or www.navypier.com.
