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Home World slated for this weekend and next

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The Miami Valley’s largest home improvement show takes place this weekend and next at the Dayton Airport Expo Center with more than 10,000 expected to attend.

Now in its twelfth year, Home World 2014 will host 166 vendors and devote 102,000 sq. ft. of space to services and products aimed at helping folks create an attractive and comfortable home. The event is produced by Cox Media Group with Universal 1 Credit Union serving as title sponsor.

“People come for information and ideas — whether they are planning a small do-it-yourself project or a major renovation,” says John Adams, WHIO Local Sales Manager. “We see younger people who have just purchased their first home and are looking for ideas as well as retirees who want to downsize or make their homes safer and more convenient.”

In addition to picking up business cards on products ranging from windows and kitchens to bathrooms and barns, visitors can view demonstrations on topics ranging from home technology to cooking. A new cooking demo stage will replicate an actual working kitchen.

Josh Mandich, strategic events coordinator for Cox Media Group Ohio, says guests at the show will once again be offered two chances to win a $10,000 shopping spree which can be used for any of the Home World exhibitors.

“It was just heaven sent,” says Betty Hensley of Huber Heights, whose husband was one of last year’s $10,000 home improvement winners. “Our furnace was old and we had already had it repaired, so we were able to get a new furnace, a new hot water tank and storm windows. It’s been great!”

The couple, she says, always attend Home World.

“We go to see all their ideas and see if there’s anything we can do to improve our home,” Hensley says. “This year we’ll go to look at flooring and kitchens.”

IGS Energy, a new sponsor this year, is offering one year’s world of free energy to a lucky winner.

“All you have to do is bring your gas and electric bill and sign up for their low fixed energy program and you are automatically entered in the drawing,” Mandich explains.

Universal 1 and Cintas will also be sponsoring a “Shred Day” from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday where people can bring their personal or business documents and have them securely disposed of on-site.”

Adams says there will be ideas for fixtures, color palettes, room design, home maintenance, landscaping.

Zach Hyatt, administrative assistant at Seal Smart, says his company will be a new exhibitor this year. They’ve recently opened a new location in Cincinnati.

“We permanently seal wood, concrete and masonry on decks, patios, brick and driveways,” Hyatt explains. “We’re planning to have a demonstration and people will be able to request free estimates.”

Jason Haught, president of Bath Fitter, has been exhibiting at Home World since the inception of the show.

“Home World is just an excellent venue to bring a showroom atmosphere to the general public,” he says. “We can display our products and make great connections with potential clients.”

Haught says he brings a variety of potential bath and shower solutions to the show.

“For example, if your existing tub or shower is structurally sound, we can place our Bath Fitters custom solution right on top,” Haught says. “It’s less stress and no mess remodeling — we like to say we are reinventing the remodel.”

Other special attractions at this year’s Home World range from mattress options and irrigation systems to solar power and hot tubs. Ongoing live demonstrations range cover topics ranging from window and door ideas to landscaping.

Flower Show 2014 returns to its roots

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PHILADELPHIA The imagination and beauty on canvas that is given bloom and blossom by flowers and gardens inspires the theme for the 2014 edition of the Philadelphia Flower Show, which will run March 1-9 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

At a press conference Tuesday at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts on North Broad Street, the shows theme of ARTiculture was labeled the fusion of art and horticulture. Natural settings, floral arrangements and gardens have served as subject matter for some of the worlds greatest paintings, prints and sculptures, according to the Philadelphia Horticultural Society, sponsoring organization of the nations oldest flower show.

Sam Lemheney, senior vice president for shows and events for the Philadelphia Horticultural Society, said the theme makes sense: Art and horticulture go together since the beginning of art. He promised this years show will give visitors something to think about.

While this years theme may seem like a departure from the past years in which a nation or region was the focus for the flower show (last year was the gardens and flora of Great Britain), world cultures and art history can be discovered in exhibits. Such will be found in American Institute of Floral Designers look at Korean treasures or Swarthmores Michael Petrie Handmade Gardens display of Frenchman Henri Matisses imagery, derived largely from works found at the Barnes Foundation.

Tom Morris, operations manager for J. Downend Landscaping Inc. in the Crum Lynne section of Ridley Township, explained Downend will present Avant Gardening inspired by Flower Abstraction by American Modernist artist Marsden Hartley (1877-1943).

Morris said it was not too hard to make to the art/flora relationship. When you wrap your mind around it, it is just thinking differently. He said the artwork J. Downend Landscaping Inc. selected as its template reminded him of the kind of thing you see in IKEA.

The colors are so vibrant and ahead of its time, said Morris. And there are so many levels to the painting. I see a three-dimensional garden as I look at it, like a blueprint from above. The J. Downend exhibit will draw on the paintings geometric shapes and masses of bright color combinations.

Among other Delaware County exhibitors will be: Stoney Bank Nurseries in Glen Mills, and Williamson Free School of Mechanical Trades in Middletown. Stoney Bank will present Beauty of the Brandywine with an exhibit inspired by the art of the Wyeth family and the collection at the Brandywine River Museum. Williamson students will present Liberation from Tradition highlighting the work of Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx with flowing lines, water cascades and colorful plants.

In addition to the marketplace and shopping area, highlights of this years show include:

An entrance garden frame inspired by artist Alexander Calder which Lemheney called, the most colorful entrance garden ever created for the flower show.

A butterfly experience featuring a thousand fluttering pollinators with 20 species of butterflies presented by Californias Sky River Butterflies. This add-on experience will allow visitors to roam around the butterflies in a simulated natural environment.

Join in the creation of the making of artwork at an exhibit hosted by the Crayola Experience, a large paint-by-numbers painting called ARTiculture Tour. Flower show visitors can also create their own coloring page using kiosks with custom software.

The return of special nights includes Wedding Wednesday on March 5 for prospective brides and their bridal parties to sample and get advice for their big day; the fourth annual LGBT Party on Sunday, March 2, with cocktails and food samplings; and Girls Night Out on Thursday, March 6, presenting food and wine tastings, shopping and demonstrations.

IF YOU GO: The Philadelphia Flower Show runs Saturday, March 1-Sunday, March 9 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, 12th and Arch streets, Philadelphia. Advance tickets are $27 for adults, $20 for students and $15 for children (2-16). Tickets at the door are $32 for adults, $22 for students and $17 for children. Check flowershow.com or call 215-988-8899 for recorded information on daily hours and ticket locations.

Local eateries’ food tastes become an element in 2014 Great Big Home + …

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Those who choose Monday or Tuesday to go to the 2014 Great Big Home + Garden Show will be able to sample food from area restaurants while exploring some of the gardens created by landscapers.
The Show, which opens Saturday at the I-X Center in Cleveland, organized the partnerships with restaurants to serve food and drink in the gardens between 4 and 8 p.m. those days creating a perfect dinner hour diversion.
So this years preview of the sights, scents and sounds of spring, adds the sense of taste to the mix for show goers.
The Weidner Groups Naples garden will transport visitors to that exotic Italian city as Clevelands La Dolce Vita from the Little Italy neighborhood, and Orlando Baking Co. serve up tastes of what they do best. Step through an entryway framed for privacy by evergreen trees to discover that this Olmsted Falls landscaper has created an outdoor living space with both a fireplace area and a cascading waterfalls one of many water features in the shows gardens.
Westlakes Ironwood Cafe will showcase its food in America-Backyard Barbecue, the garden designed for the show by Green Impressions of Sheffield Village.
Its sunken dining area, constructed from natural sandstone boulders, will include a fire pit and grilling area presided over by a built-in Green Egg Grill. The sounds of water from a custom water feature will enhance the experience.
A hand-carved stone water feature is the focal point of the garden designed by Sheffield Villages appropriately named Falling Waters, Water Features and Landscape Gardens. That garden also includes a custom bench fashioned from stone and wood. Visitors to this garden are sure to notice how the placement of stones creates interesting elevations with colors and textures from a variety of evergreens.
Landscape firms faced some unusual challenges in creating the gardens for this years Great Big Home + Garden Show. Creating the illusion of spring in bloom months in advance requires tricking plants to produce flowers at a time when their bulbs are still below the ground in their natural state.
Many of the shows landscapers had outsourced their spring bulbs for forcing to J J Greenhouse in Columbia Station. But all the bulbs were destroyed when the three-generation family-owned greenhouse business was ravaged by fire in early December.
That left landscapers with a relatively short time to find a different source. After days of sub-zero temperatures, they also struggled with frozen clumps of soil and mulch that had turned the usually pliable earth into ice.
The cold weather and its related school closings also impacted deadlines for the Lorain County Joint Vocational School students to complete their garden. Juniors and seniors in the landscape and greenhouse management program worked with masonry and carpentry trades students to construct an 18th century windmill primrose garden for their Holland entry in the show. The students normally work long days at the IX Center to prepare their garden, but when schools were closed they werent permitted to do that,
Lorain County JVS offers the two-year programs to students from Amherst, Avon, Avon Lake, Clearview, Columbia, Elyria, Firelands, Keystone, Midview, North Ridgeville, Oberlin, Sheffield-Sheffield Lake and Wellington school districts.
The show will also include presentations by celebrities such as Ahmed Hassan, a TV landscaping expert; Frank Fritz, co-star of History Channels American Pickers; and the Food Networks Cupcake Wars star Emily Ellyn with her retro recipe re-dos.
Northeast Ohio chef Stefanie Paganini and her professional colleagues will present two to three 45-minute cooking demonstrations per day, passing out food samples to those in the audience. Among some of the more interesting demonstrations will be one on the making of mozzarella cheese and another on how to grow and harvest spring flowers for salads, she said.
Sure to be among the most popular of show features is the 2,500-square-foot ranch-style idea home, built inside the IX Center by Mayfield Heights-based Perrino Builders and Interiors. Open spaces with 12-foot beamed ceilings make it ideal for entertaining, and one space is versatile for use as a den, living room or fourth bedroom.
A walk-through one-bedroom, one-bath vacation home takes the cabin concept to whole new level with an affordable timber frame and a loft for additional sleeping or living space. A dream basement, designed with sports fans in mind, will resonate with those recovering from Sundays Super Bowl. Its home theater with leather power reclining seats, game room and bar will be a magnet for those who live to entertain.
A Home Depot Kids Workshop will be a draw for young ones. Each will leave with something he or she has built and will also take home an orange workshop apron.
For many, the Home + Garden Show is a place to walk among exhibits to see the latest trends, learn about options, cultivate ideas for their own projects and get advice from hundreds of experts in dozens of home and garden areas. For others, its closing-night sale of products and plant materials is a great place to snap up bargains for their own home landscapes.
It begins at 6 p.m. when the show closes on Feb. 16. Those who come should be prepared to get dirty and to haul away their finds.

2014 Great Big Home + Garden Show
Saturday through Feb.16
IX Center, Cleveland
Tickets: $14 adult at box office; $11 at www.greatbighomeandgarden.com, Discount Drug Mart and AAA locations; $10 seniors Monday through Thursday; $5 Children 6 through 12; free 5 and younger.
A dozen international gardens representing exotic locations around the world have partnered with local restaurants to offer food tastings in the gardens between 4 and 8 p.m. Monday and Tuesday. The latest show information will be posted on www.greatbighomeandgarden.com, the Home and Garden Events Facebook page and @GreatBigShow on Twitter.

See also: Lorain County JVS students honor Holland at Great Big Home + Garden Show.

Garden calendar, Feb. 6: Now’s the time to plan your landscape

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Weekend Gardening: February Tips

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February 2, 2014

Here are gardening tips for the month of February from the Santa Rosa Extension Service:

Flowers

  • Re-fertilize cool season flowerbeds, using a liquid or granular form of fertilizer. Be careful not to apply excessive amounts and keep granules away from the base of stems.
  • Prepare flowerbeds for spring planting by adding and incorporating soil amendments like mushroom compost, manure or homemade compost. Till or spade the bed to incorporate the amendments with the existing soil to a depth of 6 to 8 inches. Allow the prepared bed to lie undisturbed for 3 to 4 weeks before planting. This provides time for some important biological activity to take place, and new plants are less likely to suffer from stem and root rots as a result. Have a soil test done. Sometimes lime is needed. However, a lime application should be made only if the need is revealed by the test.
  • Replenish mulch in flowerbeds.
  • Prune rose bushes.

Trees and Shrubs

  • February is possible the best month for rejuvenation of old, overgrown shrubs. When pruned now, plants have an entire growing season to recover.
  • Prune summer flowering deciduous shrubs such as Althea and Hibiscus. Since they flower on current season’s growth, flowering can actually be enhanced by proper pruning
  • Do NOT prune the spring flowering shrubs yet. Azaleas, Spiraeas and Forsythia flower during early spring because buds were formed last summer and fall. Pruning in February would therefore remove most of the flower buds.
  • Cold damaged trees and shrubs should NOT be pruned until new growth appears. You want to preserve as much healthy plant material as possible.
  • Replenish mulch in shrub beds
  • Finish planting ornamental and fruit trees.

Fruits and Nuts

  • Fertilize established pecan trees. Use a “special pecan fertilizer” that contains zinc. Use 2 lbs. for every year of age of the tree up to a maximum of 55 lbs. Broadcast the fertilizer evenly beneath the tree.
  • Fertilize established peach, plum, pear, persimmon, apple and fig. Apply about 1 ½ lbs of a 10-10-10 (or similar) fertilizer for each year of age of the tree until a maximum of 10 to 15 lbs. per tree is reached.
  • Blueberries are very sensitive to nitrogen and can be killed easily, particularly when they are young. Fertilize only if your goal is to increase yield or berry size. An annual application of 2 ounces of a special “azalea/camellia” or “special blueberry” type fertilizer per plant in February is ample fertilizer on 2-year-old plants.
  • Prune muscadine grapes between mid-February to mid-March. A standard method is to allow 2 to 4 node spurs spaced every 6 inches of cordon. You may notice that pruning cuts bleed, but there is no evidence that this is injurious to the vine.
  • Grapes (bunch and muscadine) should be fertilized at the rate of 1 ½ lbs of 10-10-10 for each year of age with a maximum of 5 lbs per plant applied in late February.
  • Last call for planting fruit trees! Most fruit trees such as pecans, plums, persimmons, figs, peaches and nectarines are shipped bare roots and should be planted during the dormant season.
  • Apply a spray containing horticultural oils emulsion to dormant fruit trees and ornamental shrubs. Follow label directions carefully.

Vegetable Garden

  • Several winter vegetables can still be successfully grown by starting them this month. Plant beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, Chinese cabbage, collards, endive/escarole, kale, kohlrabi, leek, lettuce, mustard, parsley, English peas, radish and turnips.
  • Plant Irish potatoes. Purchase certified seed potatoes rather than using the grocery store kinds. Use 2-ounce seed pieces with eyes and plant them 3 to 4 inches deep.
  • Prepare spring vegetable and herb beds for planting by adding and incorporating soil amendments like mushroom compost, manure or homemade compost. Wait 3 to 4 weeks before planting.

Lawns

  • Hold off on fertilizing the lawn. It is still too early for an application of nitrogen containing product. Cold temperatures and lack of plant response would likely result in wasted fertilizer. However, your winter weeds would benefit greatly.

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Winter can make gardening more interesting

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Gardeners attack the spring with energy and enthusiasm, adding lots of color, bulbs, perennials, flowering trees and shrubs.

We wilt in the summer heat, and by fall we barely have the spirit for a pot of mums. Winter, we think, is for catalogs by the fire. It’s also when you stop working in the garden and just think about it.

Not so for Christine Killian of Annapolis and Alice Ryan of Easton. Both gardeners have made it a point to create winter interest in their gardens, if for no other reason than they want something lovely to look at from the warmth of the house.

“When I worked with a designer 28 years ago,” said Killian, who lives in an 18th-century-style farmhouse and takes her cues from Williamsburg, Va., and Old Sturbridge Village, “I made it clear I wanted 12 months of interest. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I knew I didn’t want to look at a barren landscape.”

When Alice Ryan purchased the 80-acre Knightly estate outside Easton nine years ago, of which almost 3 acres are formal gardens, she was intimidated by the work that the previous owner had done.

“Just make it your own,” a gardening friend told her.

Part of that process has been to create a “winter garden walk,” a path for her daily constitutional through and around the formal Edwardian gardens. It is a path lined with color, texture and blooms to warm the heart of the gardener on a cold day.

Ryan sees the color of the gold thread leaf cypress, the dynamic shape of the diadora and its upright cones, the spidery winter hazel, the swollen buds of the magnolia, a huge and rare round leaf ozmanthus and berries everywhere.

“The garden is hot as blazes in the summer,” said the longtime Easton philanthropist. “It is actually wonderful in the winter.”

Nancy and Pierre Moitrier of Designs for Greener Gardens in Annapolis began working with Killian about four years ago to refine her mature garden, one much smaller than the canvas Ryan has painted.

“I wanted to look out every window and see something,” said Killian, who would give directions from the bedrooms upstairs.

“You need to have collections and repetitions that are legible in the winter,” said Nancy Moitrier.

Even when snow covers everything, the evergreens that form the bones of both the front garden and the plantings around the water fountain give both a visible structure.

So does Pierre Moitrier’s hand-hewn fence. That’s because winter interest doesn’t simply include plantings and vegetation, but extends to structures like the obelisk on which Killian’s honeysuckle grows or an aqua metal bench that is tucked into Ryan’s garden near statues of herons. Arbors and brick walkways count, too.

Adding to the scene in Killian’s garden are pots planted with evergreens and violas that sit on a porch and huge stones in her rain garden. The browning tufts atop Killian’s Annabelle hydrangeas catch the snow and look like ladies in hats.

All of these elements can distract the gardener from the dormancy of the winter garden. “And birds,” said Killian. “I wanted trees and shrubs that would attract birds in the winter.”

There can be fragrance in the winter garden, too, with sweetbox, witch hazel and winter jasmine.

Summer’s abundant foliage can obscure the peeling bark of river birch and oakleaf hydrangea or the mottled bark of crepe myrtle, as well as the red stems of red twig dogwood. Clusters of red berries on winterberry and the texture of the aptly named leather leaf viburnum along with the twisted stems of Harry Lauder’s walking stick become dramatic features in the winter garden.

Killian has retired from Xerox after 35 years and she plans to spend a lot more time in the garden. And there is plenty to do in the winter.

Winter is a good time to do structural pruning because the forms of the trees and shrubs and ill-placed branches are easy to see. It is a time to check for heaving roots and press them back into the earth so they will not dry out. When the ground is not saturated and vulnerable to the compression of a gardener’s footprints, it is a good time to cut back the seed heads, pods and foliage from last season’s perennials.

Gardening Tips For Cherry Tomatoes

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best suited for small gardens and for busy people as it does not require too much time.

The advantage of growing cherry tomatoes is that this plant does not require a traditional garden. Experts say that cherry tomatoes can grow well in containers (pots) or even on a patio. This vegetable plant needs minimal amount of care and yields its best fruit when kept in good atmosphere.

HAVE YOU TRIED ROOT VEGETABLE PLANTING IN YOUR GARDEN?

If you are planning to grow cherry tomatoes, then you should be following some of these gardening tips. Welcome the summer season by growing these tasty cherry tomatoes in your garden.

Take a look at some of the gardening tips for cherry tomatoes:

Gardening Tips For Cherry Tomatoes

Sowing the seeds
The very first gardening tips for cherry tomatoes is to get a soiled container or a clay pot (if you do not have a traditional garden). In the container filled with soil, sow the cherry tomato seeds about 1/8 inch deep.

Placement
After sowing the cherry tomato seeds into the container, you need to place the container where it will receive ample amount of sunlight.

When the seedlings appear
This is one of the most crucial tips for growing cherry tomatoes. It is said, when the seedlings have grown to an inch or two, place the container near a table fan on low setting for 5 to 10 minutes twice in a day. The breeze from the fan stimulates the tomato plant to develop strong stems.

After 3 weeks, follow these gardening tips for cherry tomatoes;

Transplanting
Transplant the cherry tomato plants from the container to a bigger container or artificial bed 1 to 2 days after they have sprouted. When you transplant, make sure to add in a natural fertiliser. At any cost, do not forget this gardening tip for your cherry plant. When you are transplanting, make sure to not touch the roots, as disturbing them could result in a transplant shock.

Finally, water the cherry tomato plant on a regular basis. But, you need to make sure to keep the water and moisture off from the leaves as much as possible as it can lead to bacterial growth.

These are some of the most important gardening tips for cherry tomatoes. It takes around 90 days or so to see a matured cherry tomato.