Puttin’ on the Garden Ritz: the Real Down and Dirty

It’s SHOWTIME right now in The Garden State! At the New Jersey Flower & Garden Show, February 18 thru 21, garden club ladies swarm over their best floral designs; landscapers tweak garden displays; growers release a multitude of trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals that they made blossom for these four special days. Vendors gather goodies and noteworthy speakers prepare.

Every year, the show brings the promise of spring to New Jersey residents. The New Jersey Flower & Garden Show in Edison produced by MAC Events, is a commercial production of increasing magnitude. It grew from 75,000 square feet in 2001 to 125,000 in 2009. Last year, 25,000 visitors seeking spring came to the show, up from 12,500. Splashy gardens cover 45,000 square feet, while 15,000 are reserved for the Garden Club of New Jersey’s (GCNJ) nationally accredited and judged standard flower show. Vendors, both horticultural and non, claim remaining floor space.

All of the state’s 119 garden clubs submit floral designs or horticultural exhibits, which they have been growing all year – try maintaining a plant all year at peak show quality! Nearly 5,000 club members contribute in some way: as exhibitor, setting up, arranging for transportation and housing for out of state judges, providing lunches for judges, taking design classes year-round. Although the standard flower show is important as a creative outlet for garden club members, it is of more importance to the community, as their mission is education.

Kevin McLaughlin, partner, MAC Events, says the biggest challenge is “getting all the people there who are supposed to be there.” They find exhibitors any way they can: other flower and craft shows, online, yellow pages, nurseries, florists, referrals. MAC leases the building for a week with certain building services such as electricity, water, and cleaning. Vendors buy other services: decorating with carpet, pipes and drapes around the booth, extra outlets, trash cans and other accoutrements.

Enter the Mercer Soil Conservation District (MSCD), State of New Jersey, Department of Agriculture. They began planning their 1,000 square-foot residential backyard with patio and pergola last August. They developed a theme “Trees for the Glorious Garden,” designed a display and decided on a message. They selected plants, bought them from several New Jersey nurseries, and brought them to Rutgers Eco-Center greenhouse to force them into leaf and flower for this week exactly.

The Japanese lilac flowers later than the magnolia and early deciduous ericaceous shrubs that will be on display, so it will go into the greenhouse earlier. “They flower and leaf at different times so that’s part of the art – trying to get the right length of time and light needs of the plants so that they’re flowering in time for the show. We can speed them up with temperature or daylight, so we can speed them up or slow them down. Sometimes we get it right and sometimes we don’t get it as right as we’d like to,” says Bill Brash, director, MSCD.

Three soil conservation districts collaborated on the project. “Some of us are plant people and some of us are carpenters,” says Brash. Once thepergola, patio and back of the house are built, they bring in the plants and sod. Mulch and sand are supplied by the show. Sand provides relief and topography and mulch is used to hide pots.

The District’s mission is conservation and education. “Because of the benefits of trees, whether it’s sequestering carbon or lowering air temperatures, pollution filtration, erosion or sediment control, we want people to plant trees,” says Brash, whose office has produced several fact sheets on trees for people to take home and to explain the display.

The MSCD selected four special trees for their display:

America Elm ‘Valley Forge’: cultivar with classic American elm vase shape and disease resistance. Until the American Elm was decimated by exotic Dutch Elm Disease, Americans enjoyed tree-lined streets with graceful tall trees with a spreading umbrella-like canopy. It is chosen for its importance in the landscape. “We’re trying to pay homage not only to the American tree planting culture but also the role that the elm has played in that culture. We’re used to seeing streets lined with elms and we may see them again,” Brash says.

Upright European hornbeam: columnar shape, smaller tree that stays compact without pruning, hardy, available in nurseries, disease resistant, pest free and it doesn’t get planted enough. Grows 35-40 feet tall and 10-15 feet wide. Pretty tree with great fall color, lines a driveway nice and orderly, narrow shape similar to a Lombardy poplar but denser canopy. It’s under utilized.

Japanese tree lilac: eye-catching small tree 25-35 feet tall, large, showy white clusters of flowers. Can be planted in areas constrained by height like under utility lines. Flowers late in June when most other trees are finished. Pest-free, grows great in New Jersey’s urban conditions. Good street tree with salt tolerance.

Southern magnolia ‘D.D. Blanchard’: cold hardy cultivar to Zone 6, evergreen, flowers to 10 inches, 60-80 feet tall. Cold hardy cultivars being bred to extend the range. Begins blooming in May and scatters its flowers throughout the growing season.