View full sizeJoe Palimeno sits in his Best of Show award winning display at the Singapore Garden Festival.
Joe Palimeno of Ledden Palimeno Design/Build Landscape Company almost turned down what ended up being one of the most memorable and successful opportunities of his life.
After many years of success at the Philadelphia International Flower Show, Palimeno was invited to travel overseas and compete in the Singapore Garden Festival.
“Representatives of the National Park System in Singapore visited the (Philadelphia) show in March, and were considering designers to invite to Singapore,” Palimeno said. “At first I said ‘no.’ I know it’s an honor, but it’s a lot of work and the dates were in June and July, right in the middle of my season here.”
But after careful consideration, Palimeno decided to accept the invitation and ended the adventure with a Best of Show and a Gold award at the Singapore Garden Festival.
“It was the biggest shock,” he said.
Palimeno said, when he enters the Philadelphia show, he goes in with the hopes of building an award-winning display, but when he went to Singapore, he never expected to win anything.
“We finished building the display and then had to leave for judging on Friday morning,” Palimeno said. “I got a phone call at 2 in the afternoon saying I was supposed to be back at the convention center.”
Apparently, Palimeno wasn’t planning to go back until later that evening and unfortunately had left his cell phone in his hotel room.
View full sizeLedden Palimeno display at the Singapore Garden Festival.
“When I walked into the room, the phone was ringing,” he said. “It was one of the guys from the show. He said, ‘Mr. Joe,’ — they called me Mr. Joe over there — ‘Mr. Joe you need to get yourself together and get to the convention center. The press is here and they want to talk to you. Mr. Joe, you won Best of Show.’”
Palimeno said from that moment, he was in total shock. He hurried over to the center where there were four groups of between 20 and 25 reporters each.
“There were cameras going off and mics in front of me,” he recalled. “It didn’t sink in until that all calmed down.”
Palimeno’s winning display was different from anything he has built for the Philadelphia show, he said.
“This was a design that was designed and built for myself,” he said. “At the Philadelphia shows, I build for Suburu or EP Henry, but this was whatever I wanted.”
Palimeno’s display featured a pool, wooden trellis, fabric roofing and drapes and hundreds of exotic plants.
View full sizeLedden Palimeno display at the Singapore Garden Festival.
He said the design was inspired by the work of Landscape Architect Robert Royston who lived from 1918 to 2008 and was a pioneering modernist who helped define landscape architecture in the early 1940s.
“It has always been the driving force in my design work to create functional and usable outdoor spaces as was his, whether in a backyard garden or a regional use plan, the goal is the creation of delight, joy and serenity for the people who inhabit the space,” Palimeno said. “We built our garden with a passion, and built it pretty quickly too.”
Palimeno has been a landscape designer since he was 24 years old after being inspired during his time working with Lawn Doctor.
“It opened my eyes what people are doing in their yards,” he said. “It evolved into an interest to do some of that on my own and from there, I started my own business.”
Ledden Palimeno is located at 102 Blackwood Barnsboro Road in Sewell. For more information, call 856-468-1700 or visit www.leddenpalimeno.com.
Contact Kelly Roncace at 856-845-3300 or kroncace@southjerseymedia.com.
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