One Less Garden Show

February 16th, 2016

At least for gardeners, the start of garden-show time is the year’s first indicator that spring is around the corner.

This display garden at the 2015 Pa. Garden Expo by Levendusky Landscape may be one of the last.

This year, our earliest “robin” is gone.

The Pennsylvania Garden Expo – the closest-to-home, end-of-winter garden show that’s taken place at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex since 2003 – has been canceled for 2016. It was to have taken place the last weekend in February.

Unless a new operator steps forth, Expo may be gone for good.

That leaves us with the Pennsylvania Garden Show of York on March 4-6 at the York Expo Center; the granddaddy of all garden shows – the Philadelphia Flower Show – running March 5-13 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philly, and if you count the hardscaper/landscaper booths and gardens, the Pennsylvania Home Show, which locals still call the “Builders Show,” scheduled for March 10-13 at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg.

The 3-day Pennsylvania Garden Expo with its display gardens, seminars, and marketplace of vendors was always first out of the gate in late February. It almost died a year ago when Journal Publications, which ran six shows, decided to bow out.

The 2015 Expo happened only when a few past exhibitors who were members of the new Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) convinced that group to try running it.

But NARI took over only a few months before show time and had a hard time putting together the pieces. The result was a show with only three main display gardens, no major garden-center backing, and a marketplace that had more wineries, snack booths, and home-products vendors than the garden- and plant-related exhibitors that show-goers expected to see.

I was set up at the far end of last year’s show doing seminars, and 10 minutes after the doors opened, a fellow appeared there and asked, “Is this it?”

I thought he meant, “Is this where the talk takes place?” But it turned out that he had walked through the whole show in that time, seen virtually nothing of gardening interest to him, and decided that he wasn’t coming back.

I heard similar complaints all show, so I had my doubts that NARI would be able to pull off a resurrected Expo 2016.

Apparently that’s what NARI found because it quietly pulled the plug a few weeks ago. (Read my article about it on Pennlive.)

Garden shows aren’t particularly easy ones to stage. For one thing, it’s expensive and labor-intensive to build those elaborate gardens long before plants are ready to bloom… especially for just 3 days.

Some of Expo’s landscapers and vendors told me they didn’t get enough business in return for the effort.

In other words, people like to sniff the flowers and hear the talks, but not enough are booking landscape jobs or buying the vendors’ wares.

The cost of parking and admission was another drawback I heard from show-goers. Many felt even the gardens weren’t worth the cost, and that it made little sense to pay to shop for things they could find in stores or online.

Part of Black Landscaping’s 2006 Expo display… back in the good ol’ days.

I don’t know if NARI had other reasons for the no-go because the group didn’t return my phone calls and emails. So I can’t tell you if it plans to try again, find a new operator, or just walk away.

If this is the end of the line, at least the shows were nice while they lasted (except for that last one).

The first few were especially impressive when local landscapers such as Black Landscaping, Hanselman Landscape, Levendusky Landscape, Dreamscapes Watergardens, Hummel’s Landscape, The Greenskeeper and even Hershey Gardens built displays approaching the scope and quality of Philadelphia’s show.

We’ll have to go show-less in February now… and then head to York or Philly to get that first taste of spring.

I’ll be giving two talks at the York show on March 4, and then leading bus trips to the Philly show on March 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.