A notebook is essential equipment for touring the 2004 Chicago Flower & Garden Show. Everywhere you look, there is inspiration for the home garden. Here are a few high points.
Esprit d’espalier: In Ryan Gainey’s elegant garden for Celtic Garden Imports, pear trees that had been espaliered — trained to grow in a flat vertical plane — were bent into elegant gazebolike structures. It would take years of patience and a sheltered site to achieve a similar effect in a Chicago garden, but it would be dazzling.
Just the right light: Also in the Ryan Gainey garden, charming hanging lanterns were the perfect finishing touch to a spectacular refined-rustic cedar belvedere. It’s a lesson on the value of choosing just the right outdoor lighting fixtures and not settling for the standard institutional look.
True blue: In the Chicago Park District’s “Rhapsody in Blue” garden, blue- and white-flowering plants, surrounded by foliage in shades of green, blue and silver, were united by sparkly blue gravel made of recycled glass. The gravel also was used to cover the soil in great pots of deep blue glazed ceramic. Beds were edged with upturned terra cotta flower pots, painted blue.
Right at home: The students of the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences erected a believable facade for a Chicago two-flat, complete with a deck adorned by containers. In the tidy front garden, edibles, such as collard greens, mixed happily with ornamental hypoestes, and tomatoes were planted with marigolds, a time-honored combination.
A step up: In the exhibit for Craig Bergmann’s Country Garden in Winthrop Harbor, a gravel path was defined by a diamond pattern traced by tiny succulent hens-and-chicks. In the same garden, picturesque old wrought-iron garden chairs bore tapestry “pillows” of mixed mosses.
Bright touch: A bench against a lush green backdrop in the Mariani Landscape garden was painted the perfect shade of periwinkle blue. Nearby, in the shade of a birch tree, was an exemplary shade garden planting: epimedium, bleeding heart, Japanese painted fern, sweet woodruff, lamium and woodland phlox.
Cover-ups: The University of Illinois Extension’s “From the Ground Up” exhibit showcased dozens of ground covers, which are excellent alternatives to bare soil, mulch or, in many cases, lawns. Information on the plants used in the exhibit is posted on the extension’s Web site, at www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/groundcovers.
Swirl: The geometric garden designed by James van Sweden for the Chicago Botanic Garden was a picture of restraint: seed heads of tufted hair grass dancing above white tulips around a sculpture by Grace Knowlton.
Take it home: Toward the end of the day Sunday, the final day of the show, many exhibitors may be willing to sell plants or materials from their gardens. Can’t hurt to ask.
Winners: Judges gave the Best in Show award to “Intimate Spaces in Two Kinds of Places” by Mariani Landscape. The Governor’s Award for best garden by a non-profit went to the Arthritis Foundation’s Enabling Garden, designed by James Martin & Associates. “Outside In” by Craig Bergmann’s Country Garden won the Mayor’s Award for Best Use of Color. The American Horticultural Society Environmental Award went to “The Architectural Meadow” by James van Sweden for the Chicago Botanic Garden. The Mayor’s Urban Greening Award was given to “A Stroll Down Crabtree Lane” by the Batavia Plain Dirt Gardeners. “From the Ground Up” by the University of Illinois Extension won the Horticultural Extension Award. The Most Imaginative Garden Award went to “A Spring Rhapsody in Blue” by the Chicago Park District. “A Renascent Perspective” by Ryan Gainey and Celtic Gardens for Ace Hardware was honored for Outstanding Use of Trained Plants. And the entrance garden by Heffernan Morgan Inc. was given the Landscape as Art award.
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Sunday is the final day of the 2004 Chicago Flower & Garden Show at Navy Pier, 600 E. Grand Ave. Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Cost: $13 adults, $6 children ages 4 to 12; children under 4 free. Call: 312-321-0077 or see www.chicagoflower.com.
