Best in Show – Gardeners who IM

Report from the Maymont Flower and Garden Show in Richmond, Virginia.  The theme this year was "Table for Two," which meant that most exhibits included small dining tables in their rather traditional designs.  But designer Jim Ford added a techie touch to the theme and took home the coveted "Best in Show" award.  His entry was split in two parts, one a Western garden and the other a garden in Japan, with tables set for instant-messaging between the two. The laptop screen in this photo announces the blooming of daffodils.

Truthfully, my very first reaction was okay, cute idea, but SO 20th Century, and  wouldn’t it have been cooler to show gardening blogs on these laptops!?  But on second thought, I love the image of a pair sitting in gardens on opposite sides of the world in the same moment and communicating in real time.  The designer even thought to make one of the gardens dark, which I have to admit is pretty cool.

So the Maymont Show was fun to visit and well worth the 100-mile drive from D.C. on a winter day.  I could have stayed home and visited Washington’s Home and Garden Show but it’s mostly vinyl siding and gutter systems, and we gardeners don’t want to see that crap, do we?  So give me a real garden show anytime, with its amazing fake landscapes, its cute miniature gardens, its big-name lecturers, and its hoards of vendors selling stuff that’s really interesting to me because it’s gardening stuff. Just don’t go expecting to find nature, not in a convention center.

More photos.  First, the WINDOWS.

Then the GARDENS.