Are All Home and Garden Shows Lame?
- On March 15, 2013
- By Meleah
- In Annuals, Indoor Gardening, Perennials, Trees and Shrubs
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I admit it. I have Home and Garden Show envy. I read blog posts by gardeners all over the world who talk about the innovative gardening products and to-die-for plants they just saw at their local Home and Garden Show. (Most of them post great photos, too, so I don’t think they’re lying.) Inevitably, their exuberance makes me feel excited about going to Minneapolis’ Home and Garden Show, which is ridiculous because I already know that our local show is totally lame. Lame, lame, lame! Year after year, I go because I get free tickets with a garden magazine I subscribe to. And every year I walk away complaining about how lame it is that people have to pay $11 per ticket, $13 at the door, to walk around a hot, windowless arena packed solid with trade show booths offering the same array of stuff: granite countertops, gutters, expensive kitchen gadgets, hideous bathtub and shower inserts, outdoor gazebos, patio furniture, flooring and hot tubs. So many hot tubs—$16,000 hot tubs.
Seriously, they should pay people to attend this event. Or at least let people in for free: the hope being that once they’re inside folks will buy some mini doughnuts and cheese curds followed by copious amounts of beer. Enough beer to, say, allow them to throw down a credit card for a hot tub as big as a Volkswagen. “Ah, who the hell cares where we’ll put it, honey. Let’s just get it!”
Okay, if you’re not a local, you’re probably thinking: “Hey, it’s not like anyone is holding a gun to people’s heads to make them go to this home show thing.” But you’re wrong. There is a gun, and it’s called winter. In Minnesota, by the time March rolls around, most of us would pay any amount of money to go anywhere to see anything different than what we’ve been looking at for five months indoors. Add the word “garden” to the name of the event, and you’ve got yourself a crowd. Even people that don’t give a hoot about plants will fork over cash just to see something ALIVE, maybe smell some dirt, see some flowers. We are a desperate lot.
But therein lies the problem. There ain’t much Garden in our Home and Garden Show. Yes, there are some interesting gardening talks given by local gardening gurus, as well as some of my fellow master gardeners. But those are usually off in some airless side room far from the arena’s main floor. To see actual plants you have to thread your way through countertops and hot tubs and super-absorbant sponges to get to one small area in the back of the arena where mostly lesser-known landscape design firms have their displays. Some years are better than others. This year, though, was just plain weird. For reasons I am completely unable to fathom, there seemed to be some kind of TV show theme to the booths. This would have been bizarre no matter what, but why Fantasy Island, Miami Vice and Gilligan’s Island? Did the organizers of this event swear off TV in the 1980s? Are the TV shows of my adolescence already so kitschy they’ve actually become cool?
Were people worried that visitors would be bored looking at some dumb, old plants outside the context of a TV theme? I don’t get it. Do you?
So, tell me. Do you have a good garden show in your city? If so, please email me a photo so I can live vicariously through you. Or, hey, maybe I’ll send them to next year’s local planning committee. They could use some ideas.
Leta
Last week I went to the Philadelphia Flower Show and it was really wonderful. The theme was Britain this year and it worked really well — much better that France last year. Here is my pinterest site where I put some of the images:
http://pinterest.com/letadavis/philly-flower-show-2013/
Meleah
Thanks for these gorgeous photos, Leta! :)m
susan (Eagan)
Yes! Yes, yes, YES!! We almost didn’t go to the Home and Garden Show this year because of being so disappointed in the past, but decided to try it once more. You said it all just right: countertops, slate floors, and bathtubs, but barely anything at all on gardening. And then the master gardener who gave the talk I attended haven’t ever heard of lasagna gardening! Never heard of it!!!
Augh.
Terri
I am going to something tomorrow that I know will be spectacular. Not exactly a H&G show and In Minong, WI of all places….
Terri
Darn. When I looked at the schedule I pulled up last year’s and thought you were speaking. It was fabulous, but not what I expected.
Our home & garden show is also very lame. The highlight for me was always to get a wooden yardstick from the blood bank; now I just go to the blood bank directly. Instead of a yardstick I get Lorna Doones. Sure, I have to trade for a pint of blood, but it is worth it. I would give a quart for a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.
Meleah
Hi Terri,
Hey! We don’t get Lorna Doones anymore because Keebler is now providing the blood drive treats (yuck). I’d rather go to the blood drive than the home and garden show. Ugh!
Linda LaFleur
Thank you, Meleah, for reminding me why I opt out of the free tickets, when I renew my subscription to probably the same magazine. I was beginning to wonder if I should try the shows again. But no.. I’ll rely on you to suffer through them and let me know when they improve. Thanks for your sacrificial service!