Remembering Sandy Robinson

 

A wonderful lady and treasured friend passed away early this morning: Sandra Kay Robinson - Sandy to everyone who knew her - lost a near two-year-long battle with cancer.

Sandy installs Betty as GCFM President

I first met Sandy on June 2, 2015. I can say that with certainty because, the following day, Sandy installed my wife, Betty, as President of the Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts. Sandy was herself the newly installed President of National Garden Clubs, Inc. (NGC); the umbrella organizations for garden clubs across the United States and with affiliates throughout the Americas.

Sandy had progressed through the garden club ranks in her home state of Kentucky, then stepped onto a treacherous ladder that included a competitive, six-year ‘apprenticeship’ that culminates with being elected as national president.  The national president is the visible face of the organization, and the title comes with a back-breaking travel schedule: she is expected to visit all 50 states and a slew of South American countries during her two-year term.

Sandy at the Newport
Flower Show

The next day, I gave Sandy a couple of my books for her upcoming flights (over the next two week she would install half a dozen presidents).  She dutifully put them into her tote, and the look on her face was one that said, ‘Oh, my God, something else I don’t have room to pack…’. I imagined my precious books being abandoned next to air sickness bags on flights all over the east coast.

But something amazing happened.  Sandy read them.  And then passed them on to friends with glowing recommendations. I would begin to get notes from strangers in far-flung locations asking when my next book was coming out.

With Betty now going to NGC events and with me in tow peddling books, Sandy’s and my path crossed several times a year. I came to know a woman who both took her NGC role seriously, and who also took life with a large dollop of humor.  One of the perks of being NGC president is to choose a national theme (hers was ‘Leap Into Action’) and, along with that theme, to work with professional writers and illustrators on a children’s book.  Sandy had a life-long affinity for and fascination with frogs and so a wonderful book with an environmental theme was produced: The Frightened Frog. It sold extraordinarily well, including in Massachusetts. Sandy, in turn, was deluged with frog-themed paraphernalia, which both delighted and overwhelmed her.

David Robson and Sandy
at Coastal Maine BG

When I met Sandy, my writing and speaking credentials petered out at the borders of the six New England states. I credit much of my success beyond the region to Sandy’s speaking well of me, though she never saw a presentation of ‘Gardening Is Murder’ until I addressed the annual meeting of the Garden Club of Kentucky. It was my first talk in front of a group of people who had no frame of reference for New England gardening – or humor. Afterward, Sandy said I was ‘even weirder than (she) already thought I was.’

At Crane Beach

In 2019, Betty and I were able to reciprocate some small part of Sandy’s friendship. In June of that year, she and David Robson were invited to judge the Newport Flower Show. We invited them to come a few days early, allowing us to show them some of ‘our’ New England, including an all-day trip to the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden (she had seen it once before – for 40 minutes – as part of a whirlwind tour of horticultural sites), Crane Beach, Long Hill, and Farnham’s fried clams (even though she had a seafood allergy).

Her sense of humor
on display

That was also the last time Betty or I would see Sandy, though we spoke with her periodically. That autumn, she received her first cancer diagnosis. A spring 2020 speaking swing through the Midwest that would have included a detour to Kentucky to see her was scrubbed when Covid-19 reared its head.

She was a remarkable lady who leaves an enduring legacy. Since hearing the news of her death this morning, we have heard a cascade of remembrances of kindness, activism, friendship and, above all, devotion to the garden club community.

What the World Needs Now Is... A Flower Show

Flower shows are big deals for
garden clubs

Spring is the season for flower shows. Here in New England, seemingly every other town’s garden club has one in May or June.  There are multiple classes of floral designs to admire, plus table after table of amateur horticulture: irises, peonies, flowering branches, early roses, and every annual imaginable.  Notices of the event go out in the local paper and signs appear on Main Street inviting the public to partake of a delight for the senses.

The flower shows we're used to won't
work in a time of social distancing

But not this year.  In a season of shelter-in-place orders and social distancing mandates, town garden clubs put a giant ‘X’ though the balance of their 2019-2020 schedule back in early March, including not just monthly meetings and road trips but special events such as flower shows.  They’ll re-group and (fingers crossed) start fresh in September. 

At a flower show, everything is up
close and personal - a no-no in 2020

The plight of local clubs extends to state and regional garden club organizations.  I had been invited to speak at several conventions this spring and I noted in their schedules that each had a major flower show attached to the listing of events.  Not a single one of those shows took place as scheduled.  And, the disappointment went all the way to National Garden Clubs, Inc., which cancelled its May convention for the first time ever.  It, too, had an enormous flower show as one of its attractions (Betty was part of the show’s committee).

Sometimes, though, you can’t keep a good idea down.  When the word went out that the NGC convention was to be a victim of Covid-19, the organization’s president, Gay Austin, made a phone call to a guy named David Robson and asked the question: “what would it take to make the flower show an on-line event?”

David Robson, directing the
building of a peacock

David is a retired Extension Horticultural Specialist at the University of Illinois, and so has a certain amount of spare time on his hands.  He is also one of the behind-the-scenes forces in the flower show world.  He could have told Ms. Austin, ‘search me’ or ‘it’s impossible’, but he did neither.  Instead, he started thinking about the logistics of holding a standard flower show (the term of art for one that adheres to a very specific set of rules) on the internet.  There was, naturally, no precedent.  It has never been attempted before.

He then went a step further and wondered what would happen if, instead of having just the 30 or so floral designers who were to have participated in the original event, plus the hundred or so people who might have brought horticultural entries to Milwaukee (where the convention was to have been held), NGC invited the entire garden club world to participate?

Clip the best flowers in
your garden, take photos...

That is exactly what is going to happen:  Download the schedule.  Choose one of the seven horticultural categories (including flowers, foliage, and arboreals among others).  Photograph your entry in the approved manner, and email it with your entry form (there is no entry fee). Your entry will be examined by accredited flower show judges.

It’s such an audacious idea it just might work. 

I am pleased to count David Robson as a friend (he’s the guy who hooked me into building peacocks in the rain at the Newport Flower Show last year).  When he called to ask Betty to be part of the committee (and, yes, Betty is in the schedule as chair of one of the horticultural sections), I broke into the conversation to ask him how many horticultural entries he thought Betty might end up reviewing.

“It depends on how successful the show is,” he replied, verbally bobbing and weaving.

“Well,” I asked, “what constitutes the low end of ‘successful’?”

“A couple of hundred entries,” he allowed.

“Then, what’s the high end?” I pressed.

After a few moments for contemplation, he replied, “The server crashes.”

This could be yours!

I’m rooting for the server to crash.  I’ll bet that between now and June 15th (the period entries will be accepted), your garden is ablaze with color.  Assuming your garden club is NGC-affiliated, clip the best half dozen of those flowers or branches, rig up a white board to put behind them and a clear bottle to put them in.  Take the required six photos of each specimen as described in the guide.  Fill in the entry form. Email it off.

Judging will take place between June 16 and June 30, with winners notified shortly thereafter.  And I hope this time next month I'll be writing about what happened when David’s server crashed.

A 50th Birthday Party Done Right

Some folks kick back and relax on their 50^th birthday.  Some decide to take on a tough assignment.  Count the Greenleaf Garden Club of Milford among the latter group.

Where incoming horticulture is
catalogued

I have a passing acquaintance with what are called ‘standard flower shows’.  If you walk into a room and see many groups of four floral designs, horticulture, and educational exhibits – and the titles indicate it is built around a theme – you’re in a standard flower show.  ‘Standard’ means the organization putting in on is following a set of rules about what kinds of designs can be used, the number of entries, what else is going to be displayed (e.g., horticulture and educational displays) and most importantly, how it will be judged.

Assembling a floral design - it all
seems so chaotic, but it isn't

Standard flower shows are not for the faint of heart.  You need a fair-sized venue, you need separate groups of people to create a schedule, lasso people to enter, build or scrounge up (and then paint) the pedestals (called ‘staging’) to be used, ensure all floral design materials are what they say they are, ensure all horticulture presented for display is what it says it is, ensure that floral designs conform to what the ‘schedule’ says it is supposed to be, type up and ensure everything is spelled correctly, and find accredited judges who are current with an ever-changing set of rules, and clerks to take down those judges’ comments.

Will they come?  And will they
bring horticulture?  Or will there
be rows of empty tables?

Oh, and you have to make certain everyone and everything is in the right place in that room (especially difficult with horticulture), ensure the floral designers have sustenance, keep the judges out of sight of the designers and vice-versa, have all the right awards on hand (and ensure they go on the right hosta leaf or six-foot-tall design), keep the designs and horticulture watered, and then clean up the place.

The decision to put on a standard flower show is a process that usually takes six months from start to finish.  It requires coaxing, cajoling, and understanding on the part of its chairman, who will need eight or so committees to handle the tasks enumerated above.  In all, it isn’t unusual for thirty-plus people to be involved.

Creating a table display

The Greenleaf Garden Club turns fifty this year.  The usual commemoration is a luncheon or dinner and a look backward at notable accomplishments.  The Milford club elected to do something quite different:  put on a flower show as a gift to the town.  And, with a tad over fifty members, that event would tap the talents of a sizable percentage of the club’s membership.

I became aware of the event because, weeks earlier, Betty fielded a phone call from an anxious member of the club tasked with ensuring there was lots of horticulture for the show.  Even though Milford is four towns and ten miles away, this person was working the phones overtime, looking for people with ‘known’ interesting plants they might be willing to take a piece of to share with the world. 

Each step is incised with
the name of a battle.
Double-click for  detail.

Betty agreed and, Friday morning, we drove ten carefully curated samples to Milford’s Memorial Hall.  It is an imposing stone building erected at the close of the 19^th Century to honor the town’s participation in the Civil War.  The Grand Hall on the second floor is accessed by a curving granite staircase into which are incised the names of the major engagements of that war.  The last step bears the words ‘Surrender at Appomattox’.  (Though, as a son of the South, I note the stairs commemorate only those battles won by the Yankees.)

Inside that Grand Hall was a scene of which I have fond memories: a flower show being nurtured into existence.  At one long table was the ‘intake’ for horticulture; in an alcove, four educational exhibits were being readied.  And, in the main room, individuals and groups worked to assemble floral and table designs in, I think, eight classes.

The design is done, but
is it right?

To the untutored eye, it appears chaotic.  It is anything but.  Designers have a few hours to get right something they may have worked on for weeks.  The table settings class required four groups working in tight quarters to create a set piece built around a common idea – in this, case, a Fourth of July picnic at the town main park.  Even the educational class exhibits each had moving parts – one featured upwards of a dozen small floral arrangements.

Sometime after Betty and I left, probably around 1 p.m., judges came in and made their decisions.  At 4 p.m., there was a party and reception that was open to the public.

Horticulture galore

We returned Saturday morning to see the finished product and, to be perfectly honest, to see how Betty’s horticulture stacked up against the competition (the show was open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.). 

This was the time where everyone crosses their fingers, holds their breath, and waits for the answer to the question everyone has asked themselves for months: will anyone come?

The answer was a resounding ‘yes’.  The room was crowded with people.  Some were friends, some were strangers drawn by publicity about the event.  All were impressed.

The completed picnic tables

Betty and I had one unexpected but highly enlightening encounter.  The ‘blue’ and Educational Display Award went to one from the Milford Library, which displayed its plans for restoration of a garden at the site (which, in turn, sits adjacent to Memorial Hall).  The display was superbly done and ticked every requirement from the judges.  But, better than just a display, Library Director Susan Edmonds was there to explain the project and its present status.  We spent at least fifteen minutes engaged in conversation on the topic.  My fervent hope is that the project gets built exactly as shown, because it will be a gorgeous, environmentally sound, and useful addition to the library.

Judged horticulture.  And Betty got
several 'blues'

The flower show was a great success.  It energized the club by involving its members, and it was a memorable event shared with the larger community.  A golden anniversary luncheon would have left everyone with a full stomach and glow that lasted a few hours.  The Greenleaf Garden Club’s 50^th Anniversary Flower Show will leave a lot of people exhausted, but also an indelible sense of having done something fine for the town of Milford.

Flower Show Fever

I don’t know about you, but I could use a large dose of spring about now.  I’m talking about perfect spring: middle-of-May spring.  And not someplace you get to at the end of three hours on a flying sardine can.  I want New England spring with lilacs, tulips, rhododendron and newly leafed-out maples.  And, yes, I know that’s an impossible request.

Oh, wait.  It isn’t impossible.  In fact, I can get that dose next week.  It’s called the Boston Flower & Garden Show. 

We are in the midst of The Winter That Will Not End.  Courtesy of the Polar Vortex, New England is caught in a Groundhog Day-like repeating weather pattern in which we wake up every few days to single-digit temperatures (the temperature this morning was 3 degrees) and a fresh six inches of snow.  Somewhere under the two feet of snow on my garden, hellebores are supposed to be blooming and crocus sending up exploratory flowers. 

Instant spring in mid-March

The flower show is visible, smell-able and touchable proof that winter eventually comes to an end around here.  It is lush landscapes and garden vignettes and sensory overload by design.  It’s exactly what I need.

The exhibits and vendors out on the main floor of the Seaport World Trade Center, though, are just part of the pleasure.  Beyond the glass doors at the rear of the hall is another, more intimate show that is just as compelling.

A dragon made from flowers

It starts with a pair of floral design competitions.  I’m privileged to know some of the men and women who pull out all the stops for this show, and what they do is conjure up magic.  They enter a class with a name like “Rendezvous” with a description to come up with a floral design based around “a creative design staged on two teardrop-shaped pedestals which combine to form 36” round. Height of taller segment is 24 inches; height of lower segment is 18 inches”.

Faced with such guidelines, I would curl up into a fetal position for two weeks and then call in sick.  These designers will come up with something that will cause everyone to a) gasp and b) say ‘how did they do that?

Photography at the flower show

Next door, there’s Ikebana, the incredibly graceful art of Japanese flower arranging.  (It can’t be called a competition because it isn’t judged, but it is no less beautiful or imaginative.)

Then, there’s the Photography competition, which will be in its fourth year in 2014.  Every year, I keep thinking it can’t get any better, and every year, the folks who run it prove me wrong.  The photography competition is worth the trip into South Boston all by itself.

Finally, there’s the Amateur Horticulture displays.  This is where we mere mortals get to strut our stuff.  If I have a houseplant I am proud of, and I can get it to Seaport between noon and 8 p.m. on Monday, March 10, I can enter it.  There are a handful of rules to follow (no plastic pots, no bugs on plants, please), but the rest of it is easy.  One of the best parts is that, if you don’t know the exact name of your plant, there are a roomful of experts to help you find that name.

Some of the candidate house-
plants that may go to the show

There’s one other great reason to enter a plant into Amateur Horticulture:  you get to walk near the landscape exhibits as they’re in the middle of being created.  This part of the show, called ‘the build’, is one of the most awe-inspiring sights around. Of course, you can also use the drive-through service in which a volunteer takes your plant and you’re on your way. 

I have been trying to decide which houseplants I’m going to enter this year.  For example, I’m the official bougainvillea guy in my household.  One of our plants is showing tiny, delicate lavender blooms right now.  It is certain to get me a blue ribbon. 

Betty has already tagged and is assiduously grooming the plants she intends to enter.  I’m welcome to anything left over – say, any of the dozen or so Spathiphyllum (Peace Lily) that bloom randomly around the house.  Right now, I have my eye on a begonia whose full bud seems to have escaped her attention.   If she doesn’t claim it as her own entry, it’s all mine.  That’s what it’s like to have Flower Show Fever. 

"Do You Miss It?"

I remember February 27, 2012.  A year ago this morning, I left my home in Medfield, Massachusetts and drove 45 miles to Raynham to check on the progress of several hundred pots of tulips being forced in a greenhouse.  From Raynham, I drove another 40 miles to Cape Cod, there to see with my own eyes how badly a whitefly infestation had ravaged some flats and gallon-pot containers of annuals and perennials.  From Falmouth, I drove 90 miles to Wellesley to inspect the painting of staging and to meet with the indefatigable Clark Bryan to discuss budgets.  I then drove 10 miles home to deal with several dozen emails relating to a dinner for out-of-town judges.

I relate the above because, for the past week, there hasn’t been a day – and sometimes several times a day – when someone has asked, “Do you miss it?”

My answer is always, “Yes, and no.”

Joanne Caccavale
creates an Ikebana
display.

For three years, I was the Chairman of Blooms! at the Boston Flower and Garden Show, an ungainly moniker for the person running the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s many activities at the giant mid-March flower show at the Seaport World Trade Center.  I fell into the job because I possessed the four critical bullet-point skills enumerated in the job description.  Not necessarily in order of importance, I possessed a passing knowledge of horticulture, I understood project management, I had a lot of free time on my hands, and I was willing to do the job for free.  I might add that nobody else wanted the honor.

Mass Hort had imploded in 2008.  The organization announced it had no cash and a mountain of debts.  In one day, the organization laid off 70% of its staff.  Then came the electrifying announcement that the 2009 New England Spring Flower Show was cancelled.  This was an organization on the verge of extinction.

I had been in Mass Hort’s peripheral orbit because of Betty’s work as a Master Gardener (in Massachusetts at the time, Master Gardeners were essentially indentured servants to Mass Hort) and I had helped build exhibits at three flower shows.  When Mass Hort put out a call for volunteers to mount a not-quite-a-flower-show event called ‘Blooms!’ in Boston’s financial district in 2009, I offered to help.  The next year, after The Paragon Group, an events company, announced plans for the 2010 Boston Flower & Garden Show, I was asked to run Mass Hort’s activities.

Displays of amateur horticulture
are at the heart of the flower show.

Paragon had agreed to pay Mass Hort a fixed amount of money to stage ‘amateur horticulture’, a term broad enough to encompass the judging of plants, two judged flower design competitions, Ikebana, plant rooms, a day of speakers and a Mass Hort exhibit.  My charge was, using volunteers and donated materials, to create a credible presence for Mass Hort while spending as little money as possible.  The mission was accomplished thanks to hundreds of volunteers and heroic efforts by Mass Hort’s staff.

I had a simple goal:  get people to
come into the exhibit, relax, have
their picture taken... and become
Mass Hort members.

I was asked to reprise my role in 2011.  Mass Hort’s presence expanded to include a photography competition, a book store, and miniature gardens.  The Mass Hort exhibit expanded in size.  So did my time involvement.  What had been a thousand-hour project in 2010 became more than a thousand hours in 2011.  But thanks to that ever-growing cadre of volunteers and that wonderful staff, it was another great show.  And, in addition to the funds retained by Mass Hort, membership swelled.

I had been given a free hand during those two shows to organize and run Mass Hort’s activities as I saw fit.  As planning for the 2012 show progressed, change was in the air.  Many suggestions were offered to ‘improve’ Mass Hort’s exhibits, many of them well not well thought out.  I accommodated those that made sense and rebuffed those that I knew from experience would not work.  There came points when those differences boiled over into public display.  By the time the 2012 show opened, I knew it would be my last one.  Two days after a very successful show ended, I informed Mass Hort that I could not and would not return for 2013.  At that meeting, I was shown a plan for a new, large Flower Show Committee structure that would make all decisions about Mass Hort’s involvement.  There would be no more one-man bands.  My era had passed.

Shirley Minott, in front,
whose two-sided floral
design blew away the
judges.

What do I miss?  I miss the people and their dedication.  Three days before the 2012 show opened, one of my floral design demonstrators had a death in her family.  I called a gifted designer by the name of Shirley Minott.  She promptly agreed to fill in and then put on a display that drew standing applause.  Two days later, Shirley was entered in the most difficult class of the floral design competition; a two-sided display.  I had the pleasure to watch her create her design, and then the experience of seeing the judges’ reaction to it.  Shirley’s design swept every major award.  And, just two days earlier, she had agreed to drop everything to help a friend in a time of need.

The photography competition. From
the start, it was a class act.

I miss the passion of the small cabal that midwifed the birth of the photography competition.  Beth Hume, Arabella Dane, and Vicki Saltonstall started with a blank sheet of paper and created a show that drew stunning entries from around the country.  The result was photography on a par with that of the Philadelphia Flower Show, the gold standard. 

I miss the ‘we can make this work’ attitude of committee chairs.  People like Julie Pipe and Yvonne Capella (and their predecessors, Maureen Christmas and Joyce Bakshi) worked miracles with small budgets for the two floral design divisions and produced outsized results.  Their determination to deliver quality should be studied by business schools.

I miss the zeal of the plant societies and their desire to educate the public. People like Wanda Macnair, Art Scarpa, Pat Beirne, Ellen Todd and Martha Clouse are treasures.  Listening to them is a treat; working with them is memorable. I miss the near-mystical quiet as Ikebana designers go about creating their spare designs.

The 2012 Mass Hort garden.  It was
simply stunning.

I miss the thrill of watching an exhibit rise from a bare concrete floor to fully-imagined garden in three days.  My wife, Betty, designed and shepherded three such displays, aided by a crew of skilled volunteers like Paul Cook, and professionals like Paul Miskovsky.

And I miss working with Garry Edgar and Carolyn Weston of the Paragon Group, who have a palpable understanding of the place that ‘the flower show’ has in the hearts of New Englanders; who understand the need for profits but who are not driven solely by a requirement to maximize revenue per square foot.

And, while I pleased to have back the 1200+ hours of my life that went into last year’s show, neither would I have traded it for the world.  All that I’ll not miss is the politics.

A Winter Respite II

The weather in eastern Massachusetts – indeed, in all of southern New England – has been on a roller coaster ride for the past ten days.  It has dipped into the single digits and soared into the upper fifties.  The warm weather melted the slender snow cover that had given us a sense of dignity.  Now, the temperatures have returned to sub-freezing levels, but it is a world of grays and browns.  It will take a good snowstorm to restore equilibrium.

A floral design by friend
Marisa McCoy

And so, this past weekend, we set off in search of color and warmth, and found it in Worcester and West Boylston, Massachusetts.

If you are reading this locally, then you can skip this paragraph.  If not, here is a little history:  Worcester and the surrounding Blackstone Valley was, from the time of the Industrial Revolution until the 1950s, the industrial center of New England.  It can claim inventions as diverse as the monkey wrench and the textile loom.  Today, it is only a shadow of that glorious past, but two venerable institutions remain: the Worcester Art Museum and the Worcester Horticultural Society (WHS).  The WHS’s identity has, for the past quarter century, been submerged with that of Tower Hill Botanic Garden but, established in 1840, the WHS is the third oldest horticultural society in America.  The Worcester Art Museum opened its doors in 1898 and is symbol of the largesse of the industrialists who built the city. 

At the Worcester Art Museum,
floral designers created
pieces inspired by the
museum's collection.

Held annually since 2002 as a four-day event, Flora in Winter is a joint production of the two institutions.  The Worcester Art Museum invites amateur and professional floral designers to create arrangements inspired by specific pieces of art.  Professionals also contribute stand-alone, frequently oversize, pieces.  Out at Tower Hill, the show continues with more designs, placed amid the subtropical greenery of the Orangerie and Limonaia.  To my color-starved senses, it was all a feast. 

Flora in Winter is not a ‘standard’ flower show, meaning the designers do not have to conform to any organizations set of design rules (e.g., “only fresh material”, “no manipulated material”).  We ran into Elaine DiGiovanni, one of the region’s top designers, who said that the allure of entering the show is that, “the only rule is that there are no rules”.  It’s an opportunity for floral designers to cut loose, with no ribbons at stake.

'The Worcester Hunt' is a 6th Century
mosaic excavated from Antioch.  Its
presence is a symbol of the museum's
heyday (double-click to see full size)

It was also an opportunity to assess the relative fortunes of two institutions.  The Worcester Art Museum has the second largest such facility in New England.  It has a storied past, as evidenced by the massive ‘Worcester Hunt’ mosaic from early 6^th century A.D., excavated from a villa above Antioch.  But little ‘classical’ art has come to the museum since Worcester’s heyday, as evidenced by the acquisition dates on the paintings and sculptures.

The Orangerie at Tower Hill
Botanic Garden.  A taste of
the subtropics amid the
Worcester Hills.

Tower Hill, by contrast, represents the re-invention of a venerable society. In 1986, WHS left Horticultural Hall in Worcester for the Tower Hill Farm, 10 miles northeast of the city, and started over with a blank piece of paper: a 132-acre former apple farm atop a windswept hill.  A 50-year plan was drawn up and buildings were erected, one by one, as funding assured their completion.  There are still more buildings and gardens planned, but what is there represents a triumph of good management coupled with vision.

On a cold Saturday, though, all I could think about was color and a respite from a winter that has at least six more weeks to go.  For a few hours, I was surrounded by beauty, created both by nature and by imagination. 

What a great break from that gray and brown.

Deconstructing a Vision

What took three and a half days and two dozen people to build was dismantled in a few hours this morning. Paul Miskovsky’s exhibit at the Rhode Island Flower Show (and, for that matter, each the other entries) was reduced to a gigantic pile of dark brown mulch by a small crew and some large pieces of equipment.
A flower show exhibit is a transitory dream. It is intended to exist for a few days, then to disappear, leaving only a pleasant memory of what was. If it is executed properly, a landscape exhibit will please almost everyone who passes by it. Many will pick up the brochure outlining the exhibitor’s credentials. Some will linger, hoping to speak with the garden’s creator. And a few will be sufficiently moved by the landscaper’s vision to say, ‘let’s talk…’.

Landscaping is Paul Miskovsky’s livelihood. Shows such as the just-concluded Rhode Island Flower Show and the upcoming Boston Flower & Garden Show are an important facet of his business. No one wakes up one morning and decides that they ‘need’ to scrape their property bare, re-contour the land and install a series of garden rooms. Instead, they visit friends’ homes and see things they like or they go to shows and get stopped in their tracks by a stunning exhibit. Miskovsky’s vision was indeed capable of causing jaded flower show-goers to backtrack, circle the exhibit and begin talking excitedly to one another. (It took the blue ribbon for best large landscape at the show.)

When Betty and I arrived at the show late Sunday afternoon, we found Paul in discussion with a couple whose appearance and demeanor intimated that, if they elected to start a landscape renovation, it would be a serious undertaking. We gave Paul a wide berth until his conversation with the couple ended with a smile and a firm handshake. It was, I hope and expect, a ritual that occurred many times over the show’s four-day run.

When I arrived this morning at 9 a.m., the garden still looked as it had the day before. But in less than an hour we had stripped the exhibit of more than a hundred campanula, twelve dozen painted ferns, and ten dozen tulips. The campanula, still in glorious full bloom of blue and white bells, were unceremoniously sheared of their tops and placed in boxes. They and the ferns will go into greenhouses either for clients or for the Boston Flower & Garden Show in March.

Also in that hour the stunning tropicals that had enlivened the two patio scenes were placed into climate-controlled trucks to return to the greenhouses where they have wintered.

Next came the grasses, ground covers and small shrubs. It had taken nearly a day to install them. It took less than an hour to remove them and load them in racks on one of Paul’s large trucks. Before noon, the exhibit looked like the accompanying photo - stripped of everything but its trees and hardscape. We took a break for pizza, then tackled the task of tying up the branches of trees so that they could lay flat in enclosed trucks. Paul’s full-time crew were handed the assignment of pulling out the stone wall that encircled one patio and the dozens of bluestone slabs that comprised the two seating areas.

The first section of kickboard came down around 1 p.m. Paul, manning one of his beloved Bobcats, rode over hills of mulch to begin retrieving more than a dozen trees located around the 900 square foot garden. Before 2 p.m., it was all done. The garden sprang from a pile of mulch last Sunday; eight days later, it returned to that same mulch, now enriched with some fifty bags of compost used to top-dress the exhibit.

Larry LeCain, a fellow volunteer, told me as we moved rocks that it seemed sad to see the garden come to an end. I respectfully disagreed. Paul’s exhibit was a kind of Brigadoon experience; an ephemeral event that was made all the more special because it was so deliberately transient. It was created to provide enjoyment for 35,000 people in the middle of a bleak season. For a few hours, those people could shed their winter coats and smell spring. Even tough New Englanders deserve that kind of a break. It was a pleasure to be a small part of helping to provide it.