Garden Showcase at Cleveland's Great Big Home & Garden Show

         By Teresa Woodard

Hold your breath. Make a wish. Count to three, and enter a world of pure imagination at an upcoming home and garden show.  Over the next eight weeks, Midwestern expo centers will be transformed into blooming gardens filled with a bounty of ideas for the upcoming growing season. Cleveland hosts the region’s first show featuring gardens designed around classic TV shows like “Cheers”, “Green Acres” and “Fantasty Island”. The Central Ohio Home & Garden show will celebrate Columbus’s bicentennial by showcasing the city’s landmarks in the exhibitors’ landscape designs.  At the Chicagoland Flower and Garden Show, plants will take center stage with a Hort Couture theme tying colors and textures of the fashion and plant worlds. The beloved Cincinnati Flower Show won’t resume in 2012; instead, the Cincinnati Horticultural Society is planning several smaller garden-inspired activities.  Check the speaker line-up for each show at the links below.

• Feb. 4-12, The Great Big Home & Garden Show, Cleveland
• Feb. 9-12, Des Moines Home and Garden Show
• Feb. 9-12, Omaha Home & Garden Expo
• Feb. 23-26, St. Louis Builders Home & Garden Show
• Feb. 24-26, Akron (Oh) Home & Flower Show
• Feb. 25-March 4, The Central Ohio Home & Garden Show
• Feb. 29-March 4, Minneapolis Home & Garden Show
• March 1-4, West Michigan Home & Garden Show
• March 2-4,  Johnson County (KS) Home and Garden Show
• March 9-11, Michigan Home and Garden Show, Pontiac
• March 10-18, The Chicagoland Flower and Garden Show
• March 15-18, Lansing (MI) Home & Garden Show
• March 16-18, Flint (MI) Spring Home & Garden Show
• March 23- 25, Dayton (OH) Home and Garden Show
• March 23-April 1, Wisconsin Home & Garden Show
• March 30-April 1, Spring Home & Garden Show (Detroit area)
• May 1, Cincinnati Horticulture Society Garden Luncheon