Lawn & Garden Show

Posted: March 9th, 2010 | Filed under: Shoppin' and Junkin' | Tags: | 4 Comments »

I really didn’t know what to expect at the Nashville Lawn and Garden Show.   Didn’t go last year, and now I needed to scout out some purveyors of cool and interesting plants.  I shouldn’t have been surprised that every garden vignette on display was tragically predictable and traditional.  A few nice plants, but all in all, MAJOR disappointment.  I have a lot more bad to show you than good.

What did surprise me was that I was the only person in my line buying tickets that was under the age of 65.  I’m sure there was another one behind me somewhere, but I hadn’t felt that youthful in quite awhile.   I’m going out on a limb and saying that Friday’s clientele had an AVERAGE age of 70…..and the smell of Ben-Gay in the air was palpable.

Here are a few lowlights of the floral gallery:

This is supposed to be the best Nashville has to offer?  Some willow branches and wire?!

I honestly don’t get this.  Is it supposed to be a scarecrow or what? Blech.

Seriously?  It’s a branch in a bucket of tulips picked up at the grocery store.  Scale?

On a positive note…there was a beautiful display of orchids….an especially nice selection of lady’s slippers…

and some gorgeous, yet pricey bonsai…

But what I really came for was the bamboo……

Met the owner of this bamboo farm north of here who has everything I will need for my new planting beds.  Super nice guy, very knowledgeable…just who I was hoping to find at this show.  When it gets a bit warmer, I’ll drive up to his farm and pick a few specimens for the house….he even grows the splendiforous Phyllostachys Nigra, or black bamboo.  Bright green leaves with a dark blackish/purplish stalk.  YES.

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4 Comments on “Lawn & Garden Show”

  1. 1 lauri said at 5:09 AM on March 9th, 2010:

    truly, truly, tragic. Are you sure this wasn’t one of those amateur flower shows where the society matrons get together and have a rabid competition to see who can most artfully place a stick in a vase????
    Cause that’s what it looks like!!! My favorite is the “scarecrow” of moss….I think I saw that same thing in the movie “Predator”.

  2. 2 admin said at 7:34 AM on March 9th, 2010:

    I had an e-mail request for contact info on the bamboo source: Lone Oak Farm in Madison, TN 615-865-9933 http://www.loneoakfarm-bamboo.com/

  3. 3 erin@designcrisis said at 3:28 PM on March 9th, 2010:

    Jesus jumping jehosaphat. The horror.

    Whatcha doing with the bamboo? I love it so, but it grows like CRAZY everywhere I’ve ever lived. Very scared to plant it, for fear that it will completely take over.

  4. 4 admin said at 3:43 PM on March 9th, 2010:

    We’ve got a few areas we’d like to screen and soften and with 8 inch thick concrete walls, we think we can keep it contained. Some varieties act as running clumpers, in that only running bamboo can handle our heat, but some run close and create clumps which are much easier to maintain. We also have plenty of room backing up to the state park where we can let it go crazy so I can put some true runners there.