Motivate - Hort Couture

This is the most important part of a garden show because we need to be motivated to incorporate new ideas into our future gardening experiences. 

Many times these regional garden shows are over-the-top and we can't imagine doing anything they display in our gardens.  I felt the Chicago show was a bit more realistic this year with some obvious flights of fancy.

I like all of these ideas for planter boxes but know the ferns cannot take full sun.  House plants are still big this year for outside and this doesn't bother me if you can find them for a reasonable price.  Bromiliads are expensive as are the ferns, maybe extensive use will bring the price down like it has for succulents.

Try to incorporate some sculpture into your garden this year, something homemade, garage sale, found or from one of the outlet stores.  It doesn't have to be expensive to add interest to the garden.

Water plants can be put in small fountains.  I have mine in a smaller area than this, so there is no excuse not to have that pond you have always wanted but lack the room for an in-ground one.

Create a vignette outside (not quite this fancy)

I have a few birdhouses but these were special, modeled after vintage homes.  A birdhouse might be something new for your garden this year!

This is from the "try a new weird plant" this year category.  I do not have room for a plant this big but I hear it is a beauty!

Save all of your old tires for this display?

Some Hort Couture to wear in your garden!

Can you imagine setting a table like this on your patio?

A bedroom to die for!

The above is the bling part of a garden show, but there is a lot of work that goes into executing one of these events and hopefully there is meaning in what the producers are trying to say.

Educate - Hort Couture

To appreciate a garden show, it should educate us in regard to a different way of doing things and this show certainly did that.

A pergola made out of logs

A small garden area accented by a piece of rusty fence

Conifers intermingled with perennials

We don't often think of planting conifers in the midst of a perennial bed.  Usually the evergreens are lined up in the back along the foundation with shrubs and perennials in front.

A class on spring potted arrangements

I love this berm with just about everything, conifers, perennials and shrubs.

The White House Raised beds were depicted in an even more upscale manner.  The garden show organizer actually went to Washington to see the White House Beds.  He was very proud of the fact that he even made them look better!  Raised beds are bigger than ever, and as you can see, can be placed right on the lawn.  I am not sure how easy this would be to mow!

Guess what?  Everything is in rows again, remember we were told to plant in threes and fives in triangle formations not soldiers!

I kind of like the look of these massed rows!  I have nothing planted in rows, just triangles but it looks like they may have incorporated the triangle formation within the rows.

Inspire - Hort Couture

I attended the Chicago Flower and Garden Show last weekend with the Garden Writers Association and was pleased to find out that the rights to the show have been bought out by a private company.  This company will have more control over the theme they espouse, Inspire, Educate and Motivate.

The TREND is oversized containers even in small areas used not just for planting but as part of the outside decor.

If you take a tour of your neighborhood you will find as I did that most people use containers that are much too small for their home, myself included.  Stand across the street and look at the scale of your containers with your home.

TREND, outdoor furniture is looking more and more like indoors, less metal, more upholstered and outdoor wicker.

I would guess this is how we are supposed to look in these elegant spaces!

TREND, eye-popping color, tropical plants and vines being heavily used on the patio and in garden beds.

Small garden areas (not sure about the crooked tree) can be very effective packed with perennials and again this year with "house plants."

"Found" pieces have been popular in the garden for years but now we are beginning to see them used as part of outdoor vignettes rather than stand-alone objects.

Well, I am inspired!  I just have to win the lottery to put all of these ideas to use.

An Unexpected Treasure

The Chicago Art Institute Study Group went to a local art museum located in the western suburbs of Chicago.  It was quite a wonderful and an unexpected surprise!

Elmhurst Art Museum

Built in 1998

The Elmhurst Art Museum was built to match the design of this Mies Van Der Rohe home built in Elmhurst in the 1950's.  The home was later moved piece by piece to the property where the Elmhurst Art Museum would be built.  Robert McCormick, a Chicago real estate developer, was the first owner for nine years and there was only one other owner for twenty-nine years before it was sold to the developers of the Elmhurst Art Museum.  Mies Van Der Rohe only built three of these innovative aluminum and glass homes, Elmhurst and Plano, Illinois and Connecticut.

His dream was to revolutionize the building industry after WWII thinking that everyone would want one of these glass homes.

This is the only room open in the house at this time furnished in mid-century furniture.  Other rooms will be completed as funds allow. 

A little background on Mies Van Der Rohe is that he was a student of the German Bauhaus movement which we see so prevalent in mid-century design.  He designed many high rise buildings in Chicago and is known as the "father of the high rise."

Original Bauhaus Chair

The museum is unusual in that they display the works of up and coming artists who have not quite made it yet.  They are all alive and most are local to the Chicago area and recently being shown in Chicago galleries.

Hanging stainless steel replicas of dried garden plants by Carolyn Ottmers who is also the Director of Sculptural Art for the Art Institute of Chicago

The above are digital photographs shot by David Weinberg through the glass of a dilapidated greenhouse.

Hand cut pieces of photos from art books, catalogs, magazines to form collages of plants by Stephen Eichorn

Molly McCracken Kumar is the only non-local artist in this exhibition.  She is from San Francisco and works in a layering process.

Terrariums are back big time even in the art world.  Meghan Q. McCook calls these Terra Hives, blown glass and copper with small plantings inside.

Art is a wonderful way to have a garden inside your home!