It's show time

Posted Feb 2, 2012 By Dan Clost

EMC Lifestyles -Those of us in the trade have been scuttling about the countryside visiting the various trade shows and congresses peculiar to our industry. The largest Canadian event is Landscape Ontario's Congress. The next offering is the Green Trade Expo in Ottawa this upcoming February 15, being held at the brand new CE Centre near the airport. With apologies to the grand old Lansdowne Park, this new facility is easy to get to and has a parking capacity of 2,000 vehicles. If you're in the area, drop in and have a look at what is available to the trade for 2012. For anyone who may be contemplating a major landscaping project, this should be considered as primary research.

For retail folk and gardeners in general, the show season is just opening up. Each show has a distinct tenor, a specific regional flavour, that makes them unique and worth attending. Chronologically, here's where you can go:

February 15: Ottawa Green Trade Expo < www.green-trade.ca>

February 24-26: Kingston Gardening Festival < www.kingstongardeningfestival.com>

This show moves to 700 Gardiners Road (Old Norcom building) and joins up with the Eastern Ontario Home and Cottage Expo. From 1 p.m., Friday, February 24 to 5 p.m., Sunday, February 30, ticket prices are $8 advance, $10 at the door, children under 16 are free. Forty-two exhibitors, nine quality speakers and ongoing demonstrations make this a must see. I will mention I have always enjoyed the music at this venue. This year introduces The Group of Two as the music stage show opener. We will be presenting a Canadian songwriters' playlist ranging from Ian & Sylvia to The Troews. (Okay, for you Gentle Readers who didn't catch the humour, Group of Two is a play on Group of Seven. And if you haven't heard of The Group of Seven, you need to spend some time learning Canadiana.)

This show is the main retail show for eastern Ontario and profits are split between the Canadian Tire Jumpstart, University Hospitals Kingston Foundation and Cataraqui Conservation Foundation charities

March 16: Canada Blooms < www.canadablooms.com>.

Certainly Canada's premiere consumer gardening show, Blooms continually seeks to improve its offering each year. Last year's enthusiastically received move to the Direct Energy Centre (We older folk will still call it the CNE fairgrounds.) has now been augmented by marrying up with The National Home Show. Ticket price for adults is $20, with many options available for groups, seniors and students. This is a huge show with so many exhibitors and activities that the organisers added a few days: Blooms runs from March 16 through to March 25. How large is Blooms? Other venues boast about square footage, CB quietly states six plus acres. During my days at the University of Guelph, Agriculture Canada classified that much space as a farm!

I had a good look at the speakers list since I am often dismayed at how many out-of-country folks manage to get onto our stages. I'm not that good with arithmetic but it works out to almost 97 per cent Canadian content and almost every one of them is as passionate a gardener as you.

For those of you in the hinterlands, e.g. ten miles outside the GTA, consider a bus tour as your means of transport to the show. Some outfits offer straight rides, others make a day of it with breakfast, coaches, and tickets and so on. In the Quinte area you can call Connon Nurseries or Franklin Coach lines. (If other organisations are running a bus, let me know and I'll mention it in the column.)

By the way, this show is jointly owned by The Garden Club of Toronto and Landscape Ontario Horticultural Trade Association with all profits being returned to community ventures.

March 30: Quinte Home and Lifestyles Show < www.quintehomebuilders.com>

This will be the 38th year that the Quinte Home Builders Association has put on this event. You'll find the show filling up both hockey rinks at the Quinte Sports Centre. Running from March 30 to April 1, look for Ladies Night and Family Day to see which best fits your interests. Usually, as one should expect, the landscape exhibitors showcase the latest and bestest in design and construction.

April 5: Peterborough Garden Show < www.peterboroughgardens.ca>

Continuing with its Easter weekend tradition, this show runs from 5 p.m. Friday, April 5, to 4 p.m. Sunday. April 7, tickets are $6 with children under 14 free. The venue is the same, the Evinrude Centre on Monaghan Road. There will be alternative parking areas with shuttle buses so please check the web site. This is a complete show presenting all aspects of gardening, speaking, demonstrations, some competitions so be prepared to buy. The Peterborough Horticultural Society, Peterborough and Area Master Gardeners and Northumberland Master Gardeners use this show to raise funds for scholarships and community beautification projects.

April 13 Quinte West Home and Leisure Show < www.bayofquintecountry.com>

Running from April 13 to 15, this show fills up Trenton's two hockey rinks with almost exclusively local vendors and, for the interests of this column, some very good and relatively new landscaping companies. Folks, as soon as I can find out more, which will be as soon as some web sites are updated, I reckon, I'll pass the info along. I'm fairly confident the web address is < quintewesthomeshow.com>.Gentle Reader, keep in mind that this is very early in the time line for this show's planners, after all we're still ore than two months away. The main purpose is to let you fill in your calendars so you have no excuse to not attend.

Sox update: I went back for seconds during last Sunday's dinner. A roast of beef was nowhere to be found and Sox, with a bit of a bump in his tummy, wasn't forthcoming.