One of the
city's most colorful annual events is going green. The theme
of the New England Spring Flower Show - which starts Saturday
and continues through March 16 at the Bayside Expo Center
- is "Rhapsody in Green." Thanks to innovative
interpretations by many exhibitors, including a few featured
here, this may be the most eco-friendly show in the event's
137-year history. - CAROL STOCKER
Big idea grows into 'Amazing Grass Family'
Psychotherapist Jill Nooney, 59, began making whimsical
garden art from recycled junkyard finds 30 years ago to
decorate her extensive gardens in Lee, N.H. Now people travel
from all over New England to visit her 10 acres of allees
and follies and to buy her art for their own home landscapes.
But even more people know Nooney for her large and wildly
creative art installations at the Flower Show.
"I do it because I go stir crazy in the winter and
I like big projects," she said. Each year she starts
with a thematic "big idea." This year's is called
"The Amazing Grass Family: The One Family of Plants
that Supports the Whole Family of Man."
Four members of the grass family - corn, wheat, rice, and
bamboo - have been cultivated for millennia and made human
civilization possible. In many cultures they were worshiped
as deities, said Nooney. She thinks our arrogant attitudes
toward pollution show that, unlike earlier societies, we
take our food sources for granted.
Her exhibit features an enormous cornucopia made of steel
armature with papier-mâché and ornamental grass.
Out of the opening emerge two human forms, made of grass.
Other sculptures include 10-foot corn towers, and sheaves
of wheat, oats, and spelt that Nooney and her husband, Bob
Munger, harvested in Vermont using hand scythes so as not
to damage the stalks.
By the time she finished with her "big idea,"
Nooney needed to hire a 52-foot trailer to transport it
to the Bayside Expo Center. Visit finegarden.com for more
information and for dates when Nooney's home garden is open
to visitors.
An anniversary, with gray and silver foliage
"Go green, plant silver, and conserve water!"
That's the motto of horticulturalist and garden designer
Warren Leach of Tranquil Lake Nursery. The specialty nursery
in Rehoboth will exhibit plants with drought-defying silver
and gray foliage. Because the silvery effect is created
by tiny hairs that refract sunlight and reduce moisture
evaporation, gray foliage is an adaptation often found among
plants that have evolved in hot, dry, sunny places.
Leach has a sentimental reason for creating the exhibit
with his wife, Debi Hogan. This show marks 20 years since
they met at the Preview Party of the 1988 New England Spring
Flower Show, when Hogan was starting the children's program
for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, which stages
the annual show.
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