Garden Shows: A chance for landscape companies to shine
25 Feb, 2009 By: Ron Hall LM Direct!CLEVELAND, OH -- Jim Weidner, the young, energetic owner of the The Weidner Group says he's sick and tired of the seemingly never-ending negative news about the economy.
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"I'm not listening to any of that," says Weidner, whose award-winning landscape company, was one of 17 Northeast Ohio landscape companies that installed gardens and landscapes at the 66th Annual Home & Garden Show in the huge expo hall here adjacent to Cleveland Hopkins Airport.
"I'm tired of hearing how bad things are," adds Weidner, attired in his typical sport jacket and pressed jeans "We're doing well, and we expect to have another good year this year."
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Like the other landscape company owners that invested thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of labor to display their handiwork in the one-million-sq.-ft International I-X Center (built in 1942 to manufacture bombers for America's WWII effort), Weidner was planning for brisk traffic at his company's landscape during the week-long Show. Stunningly warm weather (60 F.) -- at least for the second week in February in Cleveland -- got the Show off to a fast start. The traffic seemed to be holding up mid-week in the cavernous exhibition hall, with its operating 125-ft.-high indoor ferris wheel smack dab in the middle.
All of the landscapes there, including Weidner's, which had a decidedly European flair with a standing pool adorned with classic sculptures, played to the Show theme — "The Romance of France."
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Winter-weary consumers in almost every major city in the United States eagerly anticipate these garden and flower shows, which blossom weeks before the official start of spring. Most, including the Cleveland event, generally also include juried contests and educational exhibits and programs for home gardeners.
This was the first year that Year-Round Yards, Inc., Westlake, OH, installed a landscape and competed in the Mid-Sized Garden competition at the Show. Landscape foreman Don Nemcovsky was manning the booth and pitching his company's expertise. The Year-Round Yards landscape attracted consumers by promoting "how the beauty of the French countryside can be duplicated in the Great Lakes Region."
Nemcovsky whipped open a folder of images of his company's work and proudly recounted the process of constructing a naturalistic but difficult landscape and retention pond. That particular project required hand placing thousands of pieces of flat limestone rock, and precise engineering to preserve the region's drainage while providing the property owners with an attractive and functional water feature.
A cedar gazebo structure with a curtain of water falling from one side into
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a manufactured hot springs attracted positive attention at the Cutting Edge Lawn & Landscape, Inc., garden. Director of Design Jeff Campo greeted passing guests in the decidedly French-themed landscape, complete with bottles of French wine and an outdoor sleeping suite.
From the innovative and unique to the practical, Tom Ziegan, Keepers Turf, spent the afternoon educating show-goers to the benefits of his synthetic grass systems, especially for dog runs and those parts of a landscape that are too small or too awkward to mow or maintain efficiently. He said interest in the system at the Show was high. So high, in fact, that he said he's considering offering a synthetic turf maintenance program along with installations.
From flowers to synthetic turf to crafts to home remodeling to specialty food products, the Cleveland Home & Garden Show is a mish-mash of color and products, but it's an event that Northeast Ohio residents look forward and flock to each and every February.
"Crowds really dig area landscapers' ingenuity," The Sun Sentinel, Feb. 12
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