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New Jersey Flower & Garden Show Press

They Say You Can’t Fool Mother Nature.

Monday, February 8, 2010

They say you can’t fool Mother Nature, but you can leave winter behind for a day at the state’s biggest spring garden party.

The 8th Annual New Jersey Flower and Garden Show offers a sneak peak of everyone’s favorite season with tulips and daffodils by the score, gardens green and fragrant, and flowering trees already in bloom. The only thing missing in this magical illusion of spring are the robins.

Douglas Fisher, secretary of the state Department of Agricultural, makes the “spring break” official when he opens the show Feb. 18 at the New Jersey Convention Center in Edison. Until doors close four days later, garden-lovers can bask in the lush greenery and the attention of garden experts ready to share tips for the planting season ahead.

Prime attractions are 10 full-sized display gardens and a juried flower show presented by the Garden Club of New Jersey. It’s a feast for the senses, and the mouth-watering tastes of garden-fresh crops are not neglected.

Anticipate your home-grown harvest with the man who campaigned for edible gardens long before Michelle Obama plowed up the White House lawn. Mel Bartholomew, author of “Square Foot Gardening,” headlines the show’s free seminar series, “Gardeners Go to School.”

Some 2 million home-growers have bought Bartholomew’s best-selling book since 1981, but this garden guru has a surprise for his fans: A new cookbook offering a cornucopia of recipes for fresh-picked produce. He’ll be signing copies of “The All New Square Foot Gardening Cookbook” at the show.

More than 30 free events are scheduled to give gardeners new ideas about how to achieve great things in the great outdoors this year. Experts including garden author Ken Druse, PBS-TV host Melinda Meyers and Coleus Society founder Ray Rogers stand ready to share tips on topics ranging from plant propagation to creating more colorful gardens.

Get ready to cheer as New Jersey’s top designers go trowel-to-trowel in the all-new Container Challenge. Like the Iron Chefs, these experts will compete in a quest to create the most striking gardens-in-a-pot while the clock ticks.

The younger set has its own playground at the show in the “Growing Up Green” program. Naturalists from the N.J. Audubon Society and do-it-yourself instructors from Home Depot encourage kids to get their hands dirty with seed-planting and kitchen composting projects.

Looking for that hard-to-find tool, special plant or stylish garden bench? Browsers will find all that and more in the Great Garden Marketplace, where over 100 vendors offer their wares. Feeling lucky? Enter the show’s dream vacation to the Chelsea Flower Show and you may be packing this May for a trip to England.

By the time doors open Feb. 18, the mechanics of mounting this complex show will be over and out of sight. The bulldozers and fork lifts, dump trucks and mulch piles – and the small army of workers -- will retreat, leaving behind a well-groomed landscape of display gardens with innovative ideas for every backyard.

Display gardens featuring fountains, waterfalls, gazebos and trellises, trees, shrubs and flowers are created in a matter of days by an army of workers who labor under tight deadlines. The logistics are daunting and the living ingredients of the show are fragile, but professionals in the green trades work their magic every year.

Members of the press are invited to witness the making of 10,000-square-feet of fragrant, blooming gardens on Feb. 16 and 17 while construction is underway. Video footage or photographs of the behind-the-scenes work should give viewers and readers an appreciation of what it takes to make spring bloom out of season under the center’s vaulted roof.

Anticipation is half the fun as the show’s opening day approaches. Get ready to welcome spring and celebrate “Glorious Gardens, Great and Small,” this year’s theme. Sponsors are Suburu and PSE&G and the show’s producer is MAC Events of Spring Lake.

Visitor Information
Admission at the door is $14 for adults with a $2 discount offered for advance purchase at njflowershow.com or by calling (800) 332-3976 ext. 120. Tickets are $6 for children 12 through 17 (kids 11 and younger enter free), and $10 for seniors on Feb. 18 and 19 only. Discount rates are available for groups of 10 or more.

Show hours are 1 to 9 p.m. Feb. 18, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Feb. 19 and 20, and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Feb. 21 at the New Jersey Convention Center, 97 Sunfield Ave., Edison. For updates on the show, a full schedule of events and directions to the site, visit njflowershow.com or see macevents.com and click on “Flower Shows.”

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