After a long, brutal winter, everyone in Maine needs a little peek of green earth. On Wednesday night, a group of close to 500 people were the first to catch a glimpse of the Portland Flower Show’s fabulous displays during the “Maine Home + Design” Gala Opening Award Ceremony at the Portland Company Complex.
The theme of this year’s show, which wraps up today at 5 p.m., is “The Enchanted Earth,” and it brings forth fairies, bees, butterflies, paper cranes, hobbit houses and trolls. Guests strolled among the exhibits, sipping drinks, enjoying hors d’oeuvres from Kitchen Chicks and picking up ideas for their own gardens.
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“It’s good for brainstorming,” David Homa of the Urban Farm Fermentory in Portland told me. “You find out what’s going on, what’s hot this season.”
One of the things that is hot this season is water features, both towering waterfalls and trickling streams. The design from Estabrook’s, Ron Forest & Sons Fence Company and Mercier Landscaping even includes an outdoor shower.
“Every year I’m always surprised,” Portland City Councilor Cheryl Leeman told me. “You think you’re going to come back and see the same things, but you don’t. The show always gives me ideas of plants I want to add to my garden.”
Master Gardener Martha Stein of Cumberland told me she always comes to the show “to get ideas and to dream a little.”
But before anyone could step onto the show floor for inspiration, a lot of heavy lifting had to happen.
“It’s a really incredible process,” show director Jan Love told me of the work that goes into making the event a reality. “We start in August of the year before. Then we start the planning process, which goes into February. Two weeks ago, this place was full of boats. Saturday morning the building was emptied. Then in came the skid steers, the forklifts and the backhoes. On Tuesday, the plants and flowers arrived.”
When I chatted with Yves Joyal of Madawaska Hardscape Products and Gabe Rubino of Seko’s Creative Garden Design about their installation, I learned they’d been up until midnight the night before putting on the finishing touches.
In addition to moving huge boulders and setting up water features, the team also hand-folded and then waterproofed hundreds of colorful origami cranes that float around the display’s enchanted island.
All of the exhibitions come together as the result of a lot of teamwork.
“Ron Forest is the one who comes up with the theme,” Jim Masse of Estabrook’s told me. “Then Tom Estabrook and I pick out all the plants and bring it together.”
The highlight of the party is always the announcement of the judges’ picks for 10 design awards, plus the coveted Best in Show. WCSH-6 news anchor Cindy Williams and Love handed out the awards. This year Best in Show went to the team from Pray’s Masonry & Landscaping and Skillins Greenhouses for the creation of their “Once Upon a Time” display.
To find out who won the other awards, check out my Society Snapshots blog on pressherald.com.
In addition to the award-winning gardening experts, I also met Kerry Sullivan of Portland, who won first place in the show’s essay contest in the 10- to 13-year-old category. She told me how she used “The Enchanted Earth” theme in her work.
“My essay was about one flower instead of a whole garden,” Sullivan said. “Each petal was a different color and represented a different emotion.”
The show itself evoked many emotions in the night’s party guests, including joy, surprise and relief.
“It gives us such hope for spring,” Diana Hibbard of Yarmouth told me.
If you haven’t checked out the show yet, you should really make a point to get there today.
Because as Carman Serier of Bowdoinham, who has attended the show for more than 10 years, said to me: “I think it’s one of the best shows ever.”
Staff Writer Avery Yale Kamila can be contacted at 791-6297 or at:
akamila@pressherald.com
Follow her on Twitter at:
Twitter.com/AveryYaleKamila
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