This past week Julia and I saw our first crocuses of the year. A hearty bunch of white, purple and lavender ones were blooming in a south facing bed.

At this time, we were on our way to the annual Boston Flower & Garden Show at the Seaport World Trade Center in South Boston. Now we’ve been going off and on to the show over the past 15 years or so, and we look forward to spending an afternoon there soaking in the atmosphere, obtaining interesting ideas and chatting with a few of the exhibitors. It provides a wonderful respite from dreary winter days of nothing more than bare gray branches and foul piles of retreating snow and melting ice. We took some pictures of the displays provided by landscape exhibitors. These large displays are always the creme de la creme of the show, and this is the reason why most folks attend. If there is one binding theme with them this year it would be water and waterfalls.

Unfortunately, the downturn in the economy has made the exhibits less spectacular than in the recent past. There is just not as much diversity of themes between the competition. We miss the large expanses of greenery with ducks, pheasants, peacocks, and a wide assortment of arbors, trellises, bamboo, exotic topiary, tropical plants, etc. If nothing more than purely fanciful, couldn’t such eye-popping displays be more indicative of the “what if” rather than “what’s within budget”? As business people ourselves, we know you have to sometimes take a risk above and beyond what is comfortable in order to create something not yet available in the marketplace.

If you are looking for something to do this weekend (March 22-26), I suggest you make a trip over there. You’ll see plenty of inspirational thingys and ideas for your home, yard and garden. Plus some wonderful vendors have a wide range of garden delights and the usual assortment of plants, seeds, bulbs, tools, etc. What caught our attention among the vendors was one who had some wonderful handcrafted glazed tiles made with a specular type of glaze. These tiles just glowed. Another vendor offered cork handmade bags and accessories. Products made from this material appears surprisingly durable, similar to leather. Plus, it is a renewable resource as it is harvested from the tree every eight years.