Cleveland Home & Garden Show: Getting Garden Ideas

As was discussed in comments on an earlier post, the builders of these temporary display gardens aim to win design and installation contracts--not to give ideas to the average DIY gardener. I do not think that inspiring gardeners and convincing non-gardeners to hire you are mutually exclusive, however.

It would stand to reason that good design is attractive to both camps. A green, bronze and white color scheme may not be your thing, but the strength of the foliage arrangement around the urn in the first picture might catch your eye anyway. Those gardens that are especially strong design-wise are often the ones that stay in your mind long after the show has been disassembled.

Interesting elements can simply be amusing, too. Perhaps you wouldn't want to have this moss monster greet your garden visitors, but his mushroom cap nostrils and orange sunflower eyes probably made you smile and take a closer look. These first two vignettes came not from a landscaper's display garden but from that of a large local garden center chain. Might they feel more comfortable taking risks at shows like this than a landscape designer does?

In spite of my enjoyment of certain elements within the displays, my reaction was mostly: "Nice... but Not In My Garden." There was only one garden to which I kept returning. At first glance it looks simple, and feels a little quiet--not my usual style at all. So I studied it, trying to figure out just what it was that I liked so much.

Much thought had gone into the placement of sight lines within this display. The garden had a main diagonal axis highlighted by metal and stone pathways. The garden structure boasted an open, pergola-style roof and a flagstone floor. The walls were rigid sheets of pierced metal within wooden frames, and all of these panels were attached to the structure with rolling, barn-door-style hinges. The structure was nestled within an interpretation of rocky, open woodland.

I finally decided that there were actually three things about this garden that intrigued me. The most obvious one was the clever use of metal. Metal generally adds visual weight in gardens, but the spaces in the metal elements that the designer chose mitigate that heaviness here. Instead, the metal forms a nice bridge between the dense rocks and the soft plantings of epimediums, moss, hellebores and junipers. The pierced panels add a sense of mystery to the garden views that they blur. The rusted grate provides a sturdy path to the structure over uneven ground without completely hiding the terrain beneath it.

The second element I identified was the skillful use of line and repetition. The grate is set in the ground at an intriguing angle--not the expected one, perpendicular to the structure, but one that makes more visual sense because it follows the garden axis. The bars within the grate line up with the three feature stones, compliment the lines of the structure, and even lead your eye beyond the structure to the flagstone path beyond. (See the first picture of this garden for an illustration of that last point.)

The third element of interest is more of an idea or a statement. At first glance, this looks like a very naturalistic garden with browns, greens, rocks... but consider that the brown of the path is an industrial floor grate, and the most eye-catching rocks have been cut very deliberately and set on edge, evenly spaced in a very deliberate way. Then see that there are plants sprawling over the metal grate and junipers creeping through the stone trio--nature is trying to take the space back. I appreciate this illustration of the tension between the natural and manmade worlds that so many modern gardeners feel instinctively.

If you have not yet guessed, the grate is the metal element that I am planning to use in my own garden. I am enamored of it for all of the reasons stated above, and also for two others: 1) As an elevated pathway, it will afford me the rare opportunity to incorporate an "elevation change" in my tiny, flat lot. 2) Planting the area below the grate with thymes and rocks (I don't have the moisture for moss) will definitely create a more interesting walk to the Japanese rock garden. Hopefully it will also slow people down as they look underfoot.

I realize that I probably will be hard-pressed to find such a heavy industrial castoff in my neighborhood on trash day. So this spring I'll have to find out where the nearest salvage yards are located. And that could be the start of yet another very dangerous hobby...

Cleveland Home & Garden Show: Display Gardens Overview

Water and stone seemed to be the common thread that wove together this year's display gardens... along with a distressing amount of reliance on the same color palette. I know that when you think of Ireland, fields of heaths and heathers in swaths of dusty pinks and purples may come to mind. But I simply cannot believe that those colors plus maybe a few white or soft yellow highlights are the only flower colors available in Ireland.

There was the odd glimpse of red: red tulips, an azalea that was blooming a little more crimson than cerise, etc. But the only garden that strayed from the general script was a charming little bright yellow cottage planted with an exhuberant mix of red-flowered begonias, dusky purple phormiums, elephant ears, and blue-flowered hydrangeas. Although it wasn't something I would normally like, seeing it was a visual relief!

But I digress. There were a number of interesting features within the gardens themselves. I loved this little pseudo greenhouse. I couldn't help but wonder whether I could incorporate something like this in my backyard, using some of my trashpicked windows.


Another take on the tradition of druidic standing stones... but this one is more like a campfire

This garden had an interesting little hidden cave by the side of a "stream"... it's hard to see inside, but there was a campfire set up inside. The case of Guiness bottles on the top of the cave was a little bit too much of pseudo-clever joke, though.

This sheet of falling water came out of a pipe hidden in the last beam of an arbor. The supporting columns were sheathed in rocks and fake moss.

This little nook was my favorite water feature, I think. Water gurgled softly through the opening of the millstone. I appreciate how the stone bench seat echoes the curve:

I still have to share the pictures of my favorite display--and the idea I'm going to steal for incorporating metal in my garden this year. But I have made a resolution to shorten up my long-winded posts a little... so this is enough for now. (See, Hank? It wasn't all "smokey watery gateways to hell"... although I'm still grinning over that comment!)

Overview: Cleveland Home & Garden Show

The Cleveland Home & Garden Show is held each year in early February at the IX Center--a huge soulless warehouse of a building. I can never decide whether the display gardens breathe life into its metal frame or whether the natural beauty suffers in the cavernous, badly lit space. Probably a little of both. The timing is right, though, for plants and gardens to delight and inspire those who are weary of the whitish greyish brownish monotony of a Northeast Ohio winter.

This year, the main theme for the gardens was "Ireland," with a secondary theme of "green." A modern and environmentally friendly interpretation of an Irish castle was the centerpiece of the show. I'm not sure what I expected from the castle, but I wish that more information had been made available on the green building techniques and how they could be adapted by homeowners to improve our own "castles."

The interior of the castle was mostly disappointing. The two bright spots were the works from local artists featured throughout the house and the gorgeous kitchen cabinetry. The exterior was beautiful, though, and combined form and function very well. The first picture features a corten steel sculpture of lilies that graced the front patio. (I loved that--I'm a sucker for corten and other rusty metals.) Beyond the sculpture you can see the solar panels on the garage roof and a small waterfall that spills into the "moat" water feature.

The second picture shows a green roof that was visible from a second story walkway. The grass courtyard surrounded by square planting beds is pretty, but I couldn't help but think there are more practical planting options than grass when you are building a green roof. I also couldn't see where the excess water from the roof drained, even though it was obviously built on a slant--I suppose that these are some technical details that aren't worth worrying about when you're building a short-term display, though.

Next to the doorway that led out to the green roof were a pair of espaliered bay laurels that made my jaw drop. I have been checking out my two bay plants every since, wondering why I never thought to prune them into interesting shapes!

The castle was the first thing we walked through when we arrived; after that we moved on to the display gardens. Twentysome gardens were created by various landscape professionals and garden centers, most of them "in tribute to" or "sponsored by" (I can't quite figure out how that works) a local media talent.

The first display garden that we came to after exiting the castle was not quite like the others--there were no obvious signs with TV station logos and glossy, smiling mug shots at its entrance. It was simply a ring of standing stones surrounded by a waist-high berm of grass. A flat stone walkway encircled the standing stones, and at the center of the stone circle was a misty bog filled with heaths, heathers, orchids, ferns and moss. It was delightfully mysterious, a Druidic ruin brought into the modern day.

Most of the rest of the display gardens were not so much in keeping with the "Ireland" theme. Even when they were lovely, they did not quite transport you to anyplace other than an expensively well-done backyard... and I really wanted to be transported.

Although I was not very enthusiastic about the display gardens overall, some did have interesting features and ideas. I have a few pictures to show: Some great use of stone, how much interest you can create with just green and brown in a composition, etc. I also found an interesting way to use rusty metal in a practical application in my own garden!

All of that must wait for another day, however. I am never good at being concise and I'm sure that I have gone on quite long enough for one post. In the meantime, you should be able to click on any one of these pictures to see it in a larger size, if you want to take a closer look.