When a gardener goes to the Indiana Flower and Patio Show…

The first thing she does is head up the main aisle to see the display gardens. This year’s show theme is “A Novel Idea!” and so the gardener tries to guess what novel the designer used for inspiration before she sees the sign indicating what book it is.

The gardener sees this garden complete with a topiary serpent and guesses correcty that it was inspired by The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The gardener gives this one a green thumbs up for good use of plant material.

The gardener then turns to her right and is taken aback by flowers she has never seen before.

She knows without thinking that this garden was based on The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. The gardener soon realizes that those flowers are not real, of course, but she gives credit to the landscaper for good use of detail even in this large scale garden. Notice the ruby red slippers?

The gardener sees this little planting and is reminded again how she would like to have a copse, a small grove of trees somewhere in her garden.

She also likes the use of the ironwork and is reminded that she would like to have an interesting gate that leads into her vegetable garden, which implies a fence between the vegetable garden and the rest of the yard, a detail she has discussed with her Garden Designer.

The gardener goes further into this display garden, which is based on The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green, and can’t take her eyes off this path.

She makes a note to send a picture of this path to her Gardener Designer because she thinks it has several elements of garden design in it including wanderability and gardimacy.

After seeing the display gardens, of which there were several more than pictured here, the gardener goes through the other aisles of the show where there are various experts to talk to and lots to buy. She regrets that she didn’t have time to stop at the gigantic seed displays, but found this display of old hoes for sale.

The gardener didn’t buy one because these are just not her kind of hoes. She realizes this revelation may be shocking to some people who didn’t know that there was a kind of hoe that wasn’t her kind of hoe.

After leaving the show, the gardener is further inspired to garden and can hardly wait to get her hands in the dirt in her own garden. And that’s a sure sign that the Indiana Flower and Patio Show has accomplished its mission, once again.

For more information and pictures of the Indiana Flower and Patio Show, visit the Hoosier Gardener’s blog.

(And don’t forget to visit last Wednesday’s post and enter the contest to win a Fiskars® Momentum™ Reel Mower! Last chance to enter is Tuesday, March 16, 2010 at 9:00 EDT.)