HIttle Landscape Reclaim Your Backyard. (C) Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp
Urban living takes center state in the 55th annual Indiana Flower & Patio, which continues at the Indiana State Fairgrounds through Sunday, March 17, 2013.
Girly Steel sculpture. (C) Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp
There’s 10,000 square foot urban homestead home and garden, which includes chickens, a large rain barrel and well-planted vegetable beds.
The landscape display gardens seem to rely on hardscape to attract visitors rather than plants. Like all garden shows, there is a lot of eye candy, especially the blue flowering hydrangeas, the envy of Hoosiers everywhere.
Other things to look for:
JP Parker Flowers moves out of the shadows and into a center island display called Die Moldau, complete with a grand piano. The island is full of buckets of cut flowers so visitors can take home a little spring.
The Forested Retreat by Gardens of Growth has a fascinating display with a large root ball of a downed tree, which was decorated with moss and other plants.
Twisted roots. (C) Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp
Hittle Landscaping’s Reclaim Your Backyard uses recycled doors to mark the entry to the garden and to provide a lovely screen.
Noblesville’s Girly Steel (Joan Drizin) sculpture appears in Stoneycreek Farm, Nursery & Landscaping’s Earth Friendly garden. The tops of wine bottles were turned into lanterns and the bottoms encased in a metal grid.
Be sure to stop by the Purdue Extension-Marion County Master Gardener booth and Purdue University’s statewide Master Gardener’s booth to get all of your gardening questions answered.
Urban homestead garden. (C) Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp