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Garden Show Blows!
Display from Los Angeles Garden Show 07
Most big cities have Garden Shows where designers and manufacturers present their wares and create elaborately themed display gardens to show off their style and creativity. Los Angeles' version has never been any good (just to let you know how impartial I am, I was part of a group that won Best in Show in 1997) The show was abandoned a few years ago due to lack of attendance, only to be resuscitated this year with great fanfare. Heavy sigh. Why can't LA designers get it right?
Display from San Francisco Garden Show 07
Other garden shows are dramatic events, where designers compete to realize amazing, often over-the -top dreamscapes that thrill and delight, chock full of plants and unusual materials. Here in Los Angeles, the people doing the display gardens seem to be obsessed with 'reality', 'simplicity','authenticity' - BORING! And ultimately bleak, since these temporary landscapes are plopped side by side on a huge, sunny lawn- the minimal plant choices look wan, skimpy, tired, and thirsty. By mid-afternoon most plants are wilting, and so are the show's attendees. I overheard two women saying this was it - they'd never go to another one. I asked a couple of guys what they thought of one particularly heinous garden, and they rolled there eyes and said they couldn't say words like that in public.
One garden had a couple of nice hardscape ideas in it, but then completely crapped out on the planting. BOO! I wanted to get some inspiration going here! I was looking for ideas to knock off! Gimme something, people!!!
Tell me, when (and if) you go to design shows, do you want to see the big ideas, or the thing that will fit in any back patio...
Jump with me to see the low-lights...
Doesn't this make you feel hot and sticky? I think that gauzy stuff was supposed to make this display garden look breezy, but it just looks like it got toilet papered by the hugh school drill team.
Here's an image from the Philly Flower and Garden Show - WOW! Now there is a garden to dream on... of course I wouldn't put it in someone's backyard, but there are ideas in this space - the textures of green on green, a dramatic stone face in the landscape - these are things I'd love to riff on in a different context.
Okay, if I would have designed this for your backyard, God Forbid, what would I have seriously overlooked? Hello? Shade, anyone? I don't get it - the designer knew this was going to be in the blasting sun, so where is anybody supposed to sit? Notice that the designer is nowhere to be seen. They are supposed to be in their gardens. This person is probably off under a tree somewhere recovering from shame and sunstroke.
Here is another image from the San Francisco Gardn Show - but this is an LA area designer, the great grassman John Greenlee! Tsk tsk - the fact that he goes up there to do this kind of a display just saddens me! This is such an East LA garden! Check out the lushness of this temporary garden - each plant is still in it's nursery can, so that means there may be close to a thousand plants in one display. That's what it takes to look this good. That's what it takes to make a garden.
What can I say about this? That it was proposed by a professional landscape designer as a 'display' makes my stomach flip in circles. I don't think I can go on ... it's just too much!
Oh, yuk, yuk, yukky! And the last one looks like my front patio on a very bad day...nah, even worse than that.
Let's all head out to the Chelsea Flower Show.
Right on! This is exactly why me and my garden club staged a coup in 1997- we went in as a group of amateurs, about 6 of us from The Germinators, and created a Surreal fantasy garden under a huge chinese elm. We called it 'The Dark Side', and we won 'Best in Show' and 'Most Fun to Experience'. The other, "professional" designers actually freaked out, challenged the judges, and one of them attacked one of our members. What drama! I've always wanted to write a novella about the experience - no one would believe how mean and sordid the business of gardens can be!
I agree the LA Garden Show could be alot more fabulous. But I have one explanation why it may not be--money. Participating garden designers are asked to donate 100% of their time, all labor, all materials and all plants. The years I participated, I begged every grower I knew for plant donations. One kind grower took pity on me with a plant loan and I supplemented out of my own pocket the remaining plants and all materials. Yes, John Greenlee's garden looks great packed with 1,000 plants from his nursery. If a designer had to purchase that many plants wholesale, the total would be at least $5,000. Assuming a garden designer does not own a nursery, is not wealthy, and the arboretum gives no stipend for materials, the displays will continue to look paltry.
Ding ding ding (lights flashing) Yes! Jkskudman nailed it - it is all about money. I wonder, Jk, if places like Seattle or Philly make the landscapers donating their time and talent towards making their garden shows profitable and awe-inspiring also make them beg, borrow, or go broke to create the display gardens? My experience has been the same as yours, and if it wasn't for Joe Brocius at Magic Growers, my gardens would have looked feeble. I just couldn't stand being represented by gardens that weren't gorgeous! My solution: I supplemented borrowed plant material with plants I was going to install in client's gardens the following week. It was always alot of work, and I have to say - I'll never do it again (that usually means I'll be in the next garden show), there just was never enough support from the Arboretum staff, no matter what they promised beforehand. I thought this year was supposed to mark a change ... I went expecting the display gardens to be something that could compete with displays from other shows, but sadly, was so disappointed! And although I take your point about John Greenlee, not everybody in those other shows are owners of nurseries - most are designers. How do they do it?!
I think the question of how the other garden shows get those big beautiful designs is something the Arboretum staff and board should be asking--and they probably are. Maybe sponsorship/advertising money? Teams of designers and contractors to share the financial burden? I have no idea. But like you, I've sworn off the garden show--at least until I can save up some $$! Thanks for your interesting blog.
I hope they are thinking along those lines, Jk - if they would put more money into helping the designers I am certain they would reap the rewards in attendance and press coverage. I always had fun doing the displays, and it was a chance to do some cool, off -the - wall gardens ... but in the end the loss of time and money was too great. Let's cross our fingers ... I won't lose hope ... yet!
And thank you so much for the nice words about the blog - communicating with people like you and the other readers is so rewarding, the thanks goes both ways!