Chicago Flower and Garden Show

I was blessed to be invited to go to the Chicago Flower and Garden Show this past weekend with Beckie and Rose. Below is a picture of the small group of Garden Bloggers Mini Meet. It was great fun to see everyone again. From the left Diane, Rose, Monica, Me, Beckie and Linda.  We lunched, talked, toured the displays, talked and generally enjoyed one anothers company.

While the show was almost as entertaining as the company we kept I must say I was a little disappointed in what the displays had to show us. I guess being from such a small town without the large pool of suppliers to draw from I thought I was going to see something spectacular, or a larger scale, and more of it while there. What was here was fabulous.

The theme this year was "Sport of Gardening".  The gigantic croquet set was fun to see since we like to play croquet in our garden.

The balls for this croquet set were made of gigantic white Orchids. I have no idea what kind they were but they were the largest I have ever laid eyes on.

My favorite display in the show was Silent Poetry: The Confluence of Stone and Plants by Rich's Foxwillow Pines Nursery. I walked around and around this display. The varieties of plant materials ran from the tropical fillers to the Conifers that this nursery is noted for. There were also stone Shona sculptures from Zimbabwe interspersed artfully through out the setting. I could have done a whole post about these beautiful carvings.

It seemed that sprinkled throughout were scrumptious succulents. They were used in window boxes, pots, and in the landscapes.

Of course any of you that read my blog know of my desire to have chickens in our improperly zoned garden. Sigh~~ Here they showed a sweet little hen house/enclosure that was a kit. It could be tucked into amost any sized suburban or even urban garden. It was stocked with two chickens who seemed to ignore the masses oogling them and their domain.

The table scapes that were made gave me plenty of ideas for Easter dinner table settings.

Rose was quite taken with the tulip display as we all were. Of course her named tulip was one of the prettiest.  I on the other hand was quite taken by these...

No they aren't cow paddies.  These are the corms of the Hardy Cyclaman. I have been wanting some of these for my shady garden. I don't know why I couldn't ever get some but they were being sold by a vendor in the market place. So I came home with them and a lot of fond memories of the day. There was a whole lot more I could go on about, such as the Raptors that were on display.

The childrens area with BIG bugs you could hold and observe.

The most unusual hats.

 Something for everyone.