Date: Fri 27-Feb-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Flower-Show-Ct-Expo-Center

Full Text:

New Roots For The State's Largest Flower Show

(with cuts)

BY SHANNON HICKS

HARTFORD -- The biggest flower show in the state uprooted itself and moved to

even larger quarters this year, after outgrowing the Exhibitions Hall at the

Hartford Civic Center. Held for 16 years in one of the capitol city's busiest

buildings for exhibition events/trade shows and sporting competitions, the

17th Annual Connecticut Flower & Garden Show moved to the recently-opened CT

Expo Center. The move kept the show in Hartford, but allowed a larger number

of participants -- 30 percent more -- than in past years.

The new location allowed the show's promoters, North East Promotions of

Wethersfield, to arrange booth spaces with more walking room in the aisles.

Because the Expo Center was devoted to the flower show's presentation

exclusively, the show hours were also expanded this year to four full days, up

from the two full days and two half-days schedule of years past.

Crowds of all ages were very steady at the Expo Center all weekend, February

19-22. The newly re-opened building, formerly home to BJ's Wholesale Club and

less than a mile from the Civic Center, presented visitors with ideas in the

form of landscape designs and a plant, flower and presentation competition.

The show also offered attendees hundreds of products directly and indirectly

related to yards, homes and gardens. There were booths with planting products,

books, wooden benches, gazebos and awnings, rakes, lawn mowers and tractors.

Vendors also offered everything from garden flags and stepping stones, dried

flower arrangements, T-shirts, artwork including prints, etchings and

photographs.

Always a popular booth at the Connecticut show, Bittersweet Herb Farm, of

Shelburne, Mass., presented dried flowers, herbs and mixes to make spreads and

dips for chips and bread. The booth is a perpetual favorite for show-goers,

because Brian White and his staff offer samples of the delicious herb-based

dips throughout the run of the show.

Garden Club members from across the state participated in this year's Standard

Flower Show. "Watch Us!" offered a Design Division, "Watch Us Create," with 13

classes; a Special Exhibits Division, "Artistic Crafts," with three classes; a

Horticulture Division, "Watch Us Grow," with 44 classes; and a Special

Exhibits Division, "Watch Us Learn."

Among the 11 special exhibits this year was "Green Invaders, 1620-1840," an

educational exhibit prepared by Harriet Koons, a member of the Southbury

Garden Club. Mrs Koons had created the exhibit for the garden club's June 1997

show, and it was in turn selected by Federated Garden Club judges for

inclusion in the 1998 CT Flower Show.

"Green Invaders" presented line drawings accompanied by descriptions of

flowers and plants that were once foreign to North American soil.

"Buttercups, daisies, dandelions, celindene... these are all alien plants,"

Mrs Koons told The Newtown Bee during an interview last year. "These were not

in this country before the settlers came over.

"Some came as fodder for livestock, others stowed away in gardens. There are a

lot of plants around here now that were not native, but they have taken over.

[We are so used to having them around us,] they look as though they've been

here forever."

In a few years, the Connecticut Flower Show will feel just as much at home in

the CT Expo Center.