The stars of this beauty
pageant didn't sing, dance or wish for world peace. Their
only task was to stand still, look pretty and smell nice.
Daffodils, azaleas and pink and blue hyacinths took center
stage at the 27th annual Connecticut Flower & Garden
Show at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford.
Thousands of winter-weary folks attended the four-day event,
which ended Sunday, to catch a glimpse and a whiff of Mother
Nature's coming attraction — spring, glorious spring.
Outside, temperatures hovered in the mid-30s. Inside the
45,000-square-foot exhibition space, 25 gardens, the work
of professional landscapers, were in full bloom.
"It's too nice a day to be outside," quipped Bill
Higgins, as he and his wife, Jane, of Enfield, enjoyed the
comforts of a wooden park bench near a landscaped exhibit
of coral bells, sunburst witch hazel and purple tulips.
Timing is the key to success, said Katie Delia, a landscaper
with American Yard Service & Irrigation in Glastonbury.
"We started putting everything in the greenhouse December
1st to get everything to bloom for the show," Delia
said.
Once the flowers and trees were ready to be transported
and arranged into one of the show's gardens, the next step
was making sure they didn't catch a chill on the way to
the convention center.
"It's only a 20-minute ride," Delia said. "We
have a 26-foot-long box truck, but before we loaded it,
we put a big kerosene heater in to warm it."
Scores of merchants, selling everything from mulch to garden
gloves to greenhouse kits, also crowded the center. Visitors
were free to view the gardens, shop, nibble on samples of
shortbread or attend one of a dozen seminars, including
"Pond fish 101," "Composting," "Pushing
up daisies" and "Carnivorous plants."
But flowers and trees weren't the only harbingers of spring
at the garden show.
Inside a large, glass terrarium, dozens of butterflies fluttered
among a trove of blossoming flowers, verbena and hibiscus.
"I've got painted ladies, rice paper butterflies, scarlet
swallowtails and brown clippers in there," said Kathy
Miller, the general manager of Magic Wings, a butterfly
conservatory in South Deerfield, Mass., pointing at the
case. "Oh, and glasswing butterflies — see the
ones with the transparent wings?"
Sunday, Miller was doing a brisk business. Ten dollars bought
a plastic cup containing a half-dozen painted lady caterpillars
or a swallowtail chrysalis.
Cindy Gauvin of East Hartford bought lunar moths and painted
ladies for herself and praying mantises for her nephew.
"For now, I'll leave them in the refrigerator until
it warms up — April 15," Gauvin said.
Others hoped their purchases would attract the local birds.
Bill Newbauer and his neighbor, Bob Chaloux, left the show
carrying an ornate 6-foot-tall wooden birdhouse. "It's
got three units and a 'thatched garage,'" Newbauer
joked. "I'm going to take it home, plant it and wait
for our tenants to show up."
For Edward and Elizabeth Crowell of Canton, who were weighed
down with potted primroses and ranunculus, the garden show
was a chance to get a jump on spring.
We will enjoy these indoors for a while and then we'll put
them outside," Edward Crowell said, shifting his load.
"We're going to go home," he said, "and put
dirt under our fingernails and pretend we've been working
in the garden.
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